Mexican Drug War

In yet another blow to Mexico's failed drug prohibition war, a Mexican army officer assigned to guard President Felipe Calderon leaked military intelligence to drug trafficking organizations, trained hit men and supplied military weapons to Los Zetas, according to a U.S. Embassy cable recently released by Wikileaks. The cable says the case was the most serious security breach to date during the Calderon presidency and indicates that Mexico's powerful drug traffickers have infiltrated large parts of the security apparatus.

The drug prohibition war in Mexico has failed despite Mexico deploying soldiers and federal police in a widespread crackdown on drug trafficking organizations that has left more than 34,600 people dead since December of 2006. Now, President Barack Obama plans to meet Mexico's President Felipe Calderon amid a spike in drug prohibition violence which led to the shooting of two US federal agents.

Frustration over the failed drug prohibition war in Mexico continues to mount. Mexican President Felipe Calderon has rejected accusations that a lack of coordination in Mexico is undermining the fight against drug trafficking organizations, saying rivalry within U.S. intelligence agencies is to blame. The Mexican leader said the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, the Central Intelligence Agency and Immigration and Customs Enforcement do not coordinate with each other on security matters, and said the agencies were rivals.

Jaime Zapata's killing marks the first murder of an American agent in the line of duty in Mexico's drug prohibition war, which has raged relentlessly since President Felipe Calderón took office in December 2006. As such, it adds extra pressure to the already strained U.S.-Mexico drug prohibition alliance. Publicly, the Calderón and Obama administrations have continued to paint a rosy picture of the U.S. and Mexico marching side by side to defeat the common adversary of drug trafficking organizations. But as revealed in WikiLeaks cables and offhand comments by officials on both sides of the border, tensions are growing. U.S. officials complain that they cannot rely on Mexico's institutions — and this concern is exacerbated when their lives are on the line.

President Felipe Calderon's four-year-old army-led campaign against drug trafficking organizations created by prohibition has shaken up the balance of power in Mexico's criminal underworld and sparked a wave of turf wars, sometimes trapping civilians in their midst. With more than 34,000 drug prohibition killings in the past four years, Calderon is coming under increasing pressure to help states burdened by drug war refugees.

The head of a company that provides security for American citizens traveling in Mexico says powerful drug trafficking organizations are branching out into the $40-billion-a-year sex trafficking industry. They kidnap children and young people, demand ransom, but in many cases never return the victims, according to Brad Barker with Halo Security. He said a family might pay $100,000 ransom, but the kidnap victim can be worth much more in the sex market. "This person can be held in captivity, they can be filmed doing sex acts, they can be sold on the Internet throughout the world and make 10 times that amount of money. So why would they return the person to their family?"

Mexico is struggling to avert a collapse of law and order along its northern border in a region that generates a quarter of its economic output, with two states already facing the threat of criminal anarchy. Even after four years of dramatic military sweeps, drug trafficking organizations in Chihuahua and Tamaulipas are extending their control over large areas and the state governments seem powerless to stop them. Mass jail breaks, abandoned police stations, relentless killings and gangs openly running criminal rackets such as gasoline stolen from pipelines are the new reality in regions once at the forefront of Mexico's efforts to modernize and prosper under the North American Free Trade Agreement.

At least 37 people were killed in drug prohibition violence in Mexico over the weekend. The weekend surge, which hit the major cities of Guadalajara and Monterrey, indicates that violence is quickly spreading beyond the traditionally dangerous regions along the U.S.-Mexico border.

A U.S. immigration agent who was killed in a part of central Mexico increasingly under the influence of drug traffickers has been identified as Jaime J. Zapata. Zapata was shot to death and another special agent was wounded when they were apparently ambushed by gunmen at a fake roadblock.