Word: mexico
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...Familia is estimated to export as much as half of the 200 tons of crystal meth that enter the U.S. from Mexico each year. It was thus a clear target for Project Coronado, the four-year operation by U.S. and Mexico anti-drug officials, which has collared 900 others, mostly La Familia associates, in both countries. Aside from meth trafficking, La Familia has also brought Mexico's gangland violence across the border, into communities as far flung as Atlanta and Seattle. The group, like Mexico's two largest drug gangs, the Gulf and Sinaloa cartels, is also famous for beheading...
Whether or not La Familia is Mexico's most violent drug cartel, it is certainly the weirdest. Arguably, it is the world's first "narco-evangelical" gang. During this week's raids, U.S. officials found numerous religious images, "on fireplaces, in closets, everywhere," says one. La Familia members purport to be devout Christians who abstain from drugs themselves. In fact, they insist that while they sell meth and cocaine to the U.S., they keep it away from Mexicans. They also study a special Bible authored by their leader, Nazario Moreno, a.k.a. El Más Loco, or "The Craziest...
When the U.S. Congress enacted the Combat Methamphetamine Epidemic Act four years ago, it created a lucrative trafficking niche for La Familia. Michoacán has long been a meth-producing region, much like the northern state of Durango is known for making most of Mexico's heroin (called "brown mud"). La Familia and other Mexican gangs manufacture meth at industrial superlabs that dwarf small-town U.S. shops like those depicted on the AMC cable drama Breaking Bad, churning out tons of the white, flaky crystal each day. And while U.S. law blocks the export of pseudoephedrine to Mexico...
...Familia's carnage is far worse in Mexico, where in recent years it has begun to terrorize Michoacán and neighboring states. It announced itself in 2006 when its hitmen rolled the severed heads of five rivals onto the dance floor of a Michoacán discotheque one night. More recently, in a taped conversation transcribed in Mexican law enforcement documents obtained by TIME, a La Familia boss called Mariano promises vengeance on federal police cracking down on the group's operations. "Anyone who messes with [us] is going to die," Mariano is quoted as saying...
While some La Familia bosses were arrested in Mexico this week, most if not all those captured in the 15-state roundup in the U.S. were lower-level traffickers and enforcers. Still, it was a biblical blow to an unusually efficient and violent organization that considers itself on a narco-mission from...