Mexican Drug War

Dark imagery associated with the Mexican drug prohibition war, including images of the unofficial patron saints of death and smuggling, are showing up north of the border, a sign of the drug trafficking organizations' growing influence among American smuggling networks, a U.S. marshal said. Images of the skeletal black-robed figure of Santa Muerte, the Death Saint, are showing up in areas that don't have large Mexican populations, said Robert Almonte. He is traveling the country instructing law enforcement officials about Mexican folk icons associated with the drug prohibition war, hoping to raise "red flags so they will know that if they see some of this, they will be more cautious."

With still two weeks left in 2010, Ciudad Juárez is setting a new record in the number of drug prohibition war killings.

In a sign that Mexico's prohibitionist war on drugs continues to fail and spread havoc in the region: About 150 miles north of Guatemala City, deep in the jungle, is a military base where Guatemalan Special Forces are being trained secretly by U.S. Green Berets. The U.S. officers say the Guatemalan troops are committed to the task of defeating the Mexican drug trafficking organizations. Guatemala’s murder rate is now twice that of Mexico where more than 11,000 people have been killed just this year.

Farmers growing marijuana in remote Mexican mountains are adopting techniques pioneered in the United States to produce more potent pot and boost profits. Even as hundreds of troops fan out across Sinaloa ripping up marijuana fields by hand, drug trafficking organizations are one step ahead of the government’s efforts, helping to stifle President Felipe Calderon’s army-led prohibitionist battle against the drug traffickers.

A peace march called by the government of the Mexican town of Apatzingan was the scene of a deadly gun battle between federal forces and the local drug trafficking organization ended up as a rally in support of a slain drug lord. Photographs show people who took part in the march carrying posters expressing support for La Familia. Mayor Genaro Guizar seemed to lay the blame for the violence on the federal government, not La Familia.

An eight-month-old infant was fatally wounded after being caught in the crossfire during a gun battle between police and drug traffickers, authorities and police said. The baby was shot during a gunfight in the town of Apatzingan in the western Mexican state of Michoacan.

A man Mexican prosecutors say is one of the country's most-wanted drug kingpins has collected a salary from the Mexican school system for years, according to official documents, showing the ability of fugitives to draw support from the very government charged with capturing them. Servando "La Tuta" Gómez, a reputed leader and spokesman for the La Familia drug trafficking organization, held a tenured position at an elementary school in the central state of Michoacán and has received paychecks for 15 years.

Three Juárez police officers were shot and killed in an ambush outside an elementary school, and when other officers responded, they were fired on also. Their deaths raise the number of police officers killed due to Mexico's failed drug prohibition war to 64 this year in the most violent city in Mexico.