Word: mexicanization
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...masked marines invited photographers into the shrapnel-ridden apartment to snap photos of the corpse late into Wednesday night. The 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...
...Gonzalez's murder last month is the latest sign that drug-related violence has intensified across Latin America, wreaking havoc from Mexico to Peru. And Honduras - a strategic transit point for U.S.-bound cocaine - has become ensnared in the vicious turf wars among Mexican trafficking cartels and those among Colombian producers. The turmoil in Honduras also reflects the impact of the U.S. drug war on the region's political divisions. Hours before his death, Gonzalez gave a news conference in which he accused the leftist Venezuelan government of turning a blind eye to Colombian guerrillas moving cocaine into Central America...
...Gonzalez's more immediate problems came from the trafficking networks to the south and the even richer and more violent mafias from the north. In his six years as director general of the National Office for Combating Drug Trafficking, he had seen the presence of Mexican cartels explode in his country. "Almost all of the big Mexican organizations are carving out territory here. And when they run into each other, they will fight over it," he said. Among the Mexican gangs warring in Honduras are the Sinaloa Cartel of billionaire fugitive Joaquín (Shorty) Guzmán, the bloodthirsty...
...Mexican cartels subcontract Honduran groups to move drugs for them - sometimes "executing" those accused of stealing the product, Gonzalez alleged. And they have also been buying up real estate and businesses to launder money and provide bases for operations. "We found one huge hacienda bought by Mexicans with landing strips for major aircraft," he said, showing the photo of a concrete runway built in a seized jungle property. The traffickers have also been unloading an increased amount of crack onto the Honduran market, which is sold on corners by street gangs like the Mara Salvatrucha, he said...
Reyes, the dead FARC leader, suspected that Larrea and Chauvín, prominent leftists, were in fact working with the Mexican Sinaloa drug cartel, according to notes of interviews made by an Ecuadorian, Julio César Vizuete, before Reyes' death. Although he dropped his bid to become a legislator earlier this year amid questions regarding his ties to the rebels, Larrea is still active in Alianza PAIS. Both Chauvín and Larrea deny having any ties to the Mexican cartel. Larrea has called the claim "insane...