Word: mexicanization
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Mexican farmers, the patronage of local drug dons often means the difference between eating and going hungry. "What choice do we have?" asks a peasant in the state of Guerrero who earns $10 a day from his poppy field, $8 more than the agricultural farmers. "We have to live." In Sonora the tale is told of an up-and-coming trafficker, known as El Cejaguera (Blond Eyebrows), who visited several drought-stricken farms, handed the proprietors cash- stuffed envelopes, then disappeared without a word...
Until recently it was assumed in Mexico that the country's drug problems were not as grave as Colombia's. Local moguls oversaw marijuana and poppy harvests; many made money; no one got hurt. Then on Feb. 1, when 22 suspected narcotics traffickers were arrested in three Mexican states, it became increasingly clear that Mexico had become yet another way station for Medellin cartel business. Six of the detainees were Colombians believed to be midlevel operatives for the cartel. When Mexican federal police inspected a warehouse the Colombians used in Sonora, they found 100 AK-47 assault rifles...
...investigators disagree. Not only is Mexico the largest exporter of heroin and marijuana to the U.S., they say, but 40% to 75% of the region's cocaine hopscotches its way north to the U.S. through Mexico. "The major traffickers in Mexico can't operate without the assistance of Mexican officials," asserts a senior Customs agent. "So we're focusing on the chief Mexican law- enforcement officials...
...also pursuing allegations that one Cabinet-rank official accepted payoffs from dealers. At the state level, corruption appears rampant. One DEA investigation tied a large drug operator both socially and financially to five former state governors and at least one current governor. "Corruption has penetrated all levels of the Mexican government," says a ranking U.S. law-enforcement official. "It's vertical, it's horizontal and it's total...
...harsh tone reflects the strain in U.S.-Mexican relations that set in following the torture-murder three years ago of DEA Agent Camarena. In December a federal grand jury in Los Angeles indicted nine people, including Drug Barons Caro Quintero and Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo, and three former Mexican police officials. U.S. authorities charge that the Mexican police hindered the investigation and are still withholding evidence that might help to arrest other suspects...