Word: drugged
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...chilling call appears to be the latest attempt to take the moral high ground by a quasi-religious drug cartel that has become one of the most dangerous threats to Mexican security forces. The caller identified himself as Servando Gomez, head of a narcotics mafia that has baptized itself La Familia Michoacana. The gangsters, who had bought ads in newspapers and given an interview to a leading Mexican magazine, claim that although they traffic drugs, they protect their local community and purport to be devout Evangelical Christians. All members are disciplined to abstain from narcotics themselves and care for their...
Gangsters have long financed their own music genre (drug ballads) nurtured their own fashion style (buchones, crocodile-skin boots alongside designer bling) and revered an early 20th century bandit, Jesus Malverde, as a narco saint. But the effort to forge their own religious sect is new, proof of a cultural autonomy to match their fearsome ability to defy Mexico City and Washington with impunity. (See pictures of the war on drugs in Ciudad Juarez...
...Familia claims to employ thousands of people - all from the state of Michoacan - and pay them wages of at least $2,000 per month, more than 10 times the minimum wage. The capos say they do not tolerate robbery, kidnapping or drug-dealing in their communities. But they reserve the right to use righteous violence against anyone who betrays or crosses them. "Those who commit mistakes are tied up for a long time. If the mistake is grave, they are tortured. If there is loss of trust and treachery, they must die," a cartel spokesman called El Tio (the Uncle...
...fire. When they couldn't break him free, they launched simultaneous attacks on police in towns and cities across Michoacan for the next three days. At least 16 officers were killed and dozens of police cars torched in a campaign one Mexican commentator dubbed the Tet offensive of the drug war. (Check out a story on the wave of beheadings in Mexico...
NATO and U.S. forces have a new commander, General Stanley McChrystal. What are the first three or four things he needs to do to address this problem? I think the first step has to be identifying how the money and drugs flow, studying the maps and looking at the routes that narcotics take out of the country, identifying where the drug labs are, identifying the major players. This is going to require a lot more intelligence-sharing than has been going...