Word: drugging
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...graphic images of the bullet-ridden 51-year-old man, clothes hanging off and hands grasping religious beads, were soon plastered across the Internet alongside triumphant declarations from Mexican officials. The marines had shot Arturo Beltrán Leyva, or "The Beard," one of the bloodiest and most powerful drug traffickers in Latin America, they said. This death, they claimed, marked a major victory in the war against the drug cartels that are wreaking havoc south of the Rio Grande. "This is a crushing strike against one of the most dangerous criminal organizations of the continent," an upbeat President Felipe...
...critics of Calderón's military approach to the drug war are dubious about whether the dramatic killing will actually help reduce the wanton trafficking and violence in Mexico. "The Beard" may be gone, but he could simply be replaced by one of his even more bloodthirsty lieutenants. There is also concern that the killing may just strengthen the other five cartels vying for power in Mexico. "If this was a conventional war, then this killing of a key general would be a clear victory," says historian and pundit Jose Antonio Crespo. "But in the drug war, this slaying...
...that Beltrán Leyva was a bona fide kingpin and a genuine threat to the Mexican security services. Born in a rough-hewn village of the northern Sierra Madre, he was alleged to have been trafficking heroin and marijuana since the 1980s. As Mexican cartels grew in power, drug agents say, he forged a smuggling empire stretching from the jungles of Colombia to the avenues of New York City. He is alleged to have masterminded the killing of hundreds who stood in his way, including federal police chief Edgar Millan, who was shot dead in his home...
...blond hair. Mexican officials allege that Valdez was behind the videotaped torture and killing of a rival gangster in Acapulco in 2005. Similar to an al-Qaeda propaganda film, the video triggered a wave of copycat movies posted on the Internet, raising the stakes in the Mexican drug war. Such a figure could unleash even more carnage if he were at the top of a cartel. (See how a drug lord placed on the TIME...
There are also questions about how the nature of Beltrán Leyva's end will affect the drug war. Back in the 1980s and '90s, key Mexican kingpins were arrested peacefully by police officers. However, amid the militarization of the conflict under Calderón, the armed forces conduct most major detentions. In the operation to nab Beltrán Leyva, hundreds of marines swept on an apartment building in the spa city of Cuernavaca, an hour's drive from the capital. A two-hour battle ensued, involving grenades and mounted machine guns, before the drug lord, five...