Mexican Drug War

A Penticton, B.C., man vacationing in Mexico is recovering in hospital from a gunshot wound after being caught in a bloody crossfire that left one man dead in yet another round of drug prohibition violence in the troubled country. The man, in his 60s, was leaving a Mazatlan pharmacy with his wife on Sunday when gunmen opened fire, spraying their intended target with bullets and striking the man in the leg below the knee, according to family members.

Guatemalan soldiers tasked with sweeping out Mexican drug trafficking organizations are finding they are outgunned and ill-equipped, raising fears of a power vacuum in parts of the country even after a 30-day military siege. "Organized crime is not just infiltrating us, it pains me to say it but drug traffickers have us cornered," Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom told Congress last week.

The number of civilians killed in Mexico’s drug prohibition war soared by 172 percent in the last 12 months. Collateral deaths of civilians increased from 61 in 2009 to 166 last year, according to a report from the Attorney General’s Office.

A Kiwi-born banker has revealed chilling details of his undercover life working for vicious, prohibition-created South American drug trafficking organizations, including watching a hit squad execute and dismember a group of people in front of him. He claims he was approached by the US Drug Enforcement Agency after striking up friendships with Mexican cartel bankers while in jail for conspiring to defraud.

A priest who shelters stranded migrants needs police protection, a chopped-up body turns up with a threatening message, beheadings are on the rise, and the local press is too frightened to write about any of it. This is not northern Mexico, where traffickers created by drug prohibition fight for turf along the U.S. border and the Mexican government wages an open battle against them. This is the south, where the brutal Zetas organization is quietly spreading a reign of terror virtually unchallenged, all the way to the border with Guatemala — and across it.

The Mexican government has released a database it says covers all murders presumed to have a link to the country's drug prohibition war in which at least seven different drug trafficking organizations are fighting each other and federal forces deployed in a massive offensive against them launched in December 2006. The number of deaths has risen rapidly since then to total 34,612 up until the end of 2010, by far the most violent year so far with 15,273 people killed.

Mayor Luis Jiminez Mata, of Santiago Amoltepec, was shot to death by prohibition-created drug traffickers when he was visiting the state capital of Oaxaca. He is the third municipal leader to be killed in a week and in 2011.

Tornillo, Texas and Guadalupe, Mexico are two small towns separated by only a fence. In one, residents go about their daily business. In the other, the community lives in constant fear. KTSM in Texas reports on how the drug prohibition war has deeply changed the relationship between the border towns.

Drug trafficking organizations fighting over Mexico's richest city have launched a wave of attacks against police and rivals since New Year's Eve, crushing hopes of a fall in violence and alarming business leaders.