Mexican Drug War

Despite millions in U.S. aid, forces continue to be outgunned, overwhelmed — and often purchased outright — by drug prohibition gangsters. Many in Mexico consider the American investment little help so far against the bloody tide wrought by drug prohibition gangs. Mexico's top federal policeman, Genaro Garcia Luna, has estimated gangsters pass out some $100 million each month to local and state cops on the take.

Gunmen in the drug prohibition violence-ridden border city of Ciudad Juarez killed Rito Grado Serrano, regional president of the community of El Porvenira, and his son, Mexican officials said Sunday.

A radio station broadcast what it described as a telephone conversation in which Mexican congressman Julio Cesar Godoy Toscano and one of Mexico's biggest drug prohibition lords, La Familia leader Servando "La Tuta" Gomez, express support for each other and discuss bribing a reporter. Godoy represents the western state of Michoacan, La Familia's stronghold. He already faces federal charges for allegedly protecting the drug trafficking organization but has immunity from arrest because he is a congressman.

Texas Homeland Security Director Steve McCraw issued a travel warning advising Texans that nobody should head to Mexico at this point. McCraw stressed the advisory due to the increased drug prohibition violence and threat from drug trafficking organizations.

A Mexican drug trafficking organization already raking in hefty profits trafficking drugs to the United States under drug prohibition has discovered a new business in the western state of Michoacan -- illegal mining.

A Mexican police commander investigating the reported shooting of an American tourist on a border lake was decapitated and his head was found in a suitcase outside a Mexican Army base.

A decade ago, they were a small group of elite Mexican soldiers who saw a chance to make a lot more money working as hitmen for powerful drug trafficking organizations. Today, the "Zetas" are the most feared gang in Mexico. Their vicious tactics, geographic reach and expansion into new illegal businesses presents a new kind of threat in a drug prohibition war that has already killed 29,000 people since late 2006.

The search continues for the body of a tourist, David Hartley, believed to have been killed on a Texas lake, which separates the United Stated from Mexico. Friends and family of Hartley held a memorial service for him, without his remains.

A convoy of hitmen ambushed a group of traffic police patrolling a Mexican highway, killing eight officers in the latest strike against security forces. More than 2,000 police officers have been killed due to drug prohibition violence since Calderon took office.

A man accused of being one of Mexico's most notorious hired killers says his confessions were false and extracted through torture. Soto Arias, 29, a junkyard owner, has been convicted of nothing, and his torture complaint is being investigated by Mexico's human rights commission. Many other crime suspects and ordinary citizens have made similar allegations about disappearances, extra-judicial killings and torture at the hands of the Mexican military and police.