Mexico’s drug gangs

Why is Mexico in the front line?

Because of its long border with the world's main drugs consumer: the USA. Unlike Colombia's drug barons, Mexico's are traders rather than manufacturers - their power lies in access to the US drug market. And as the US-funded disruption of Colombia's drug trade has begun to bite - closing off air and sea trafficking routes from Central and Latin America - Mexico has become an extraordinary bottleneck for drugs traffic, boosting the power of the Mexican cartels. About 90 per cent of the 500-700 tonnes of cocaine consumed every year in America comes through Mexico. The trade, worth an estimated $30bn (or 4 per cent of Mexico's GDP), has enabled the cartels to dictate terms to their suppliers and expand into other realms of organised crime, such as money laundering, kidnapping and human trafficking.

Just how powerful are the cartels?

In much of Mexico, more powerful than the government itself. There are seven major ones, divided into two rival alliances: the Gulf-Tijuana cartel, based in the east, and 'The Federation', led by the Sinaloa cartel, in the west. Most gangs have their roots in mountainous northern Mexico and the drugs industry which first grew there to supply US consumers in the 1920s. With their staggering income from drug smuggling and money laundering, they don't hesitate to kill the politicians, judges, and journalists they can't bribe or intimidate. The cartels are also firmly fixed in the popular imagination; songs celebrating the gangs' exploits, known as narcocorridos, are wildly popular, even though many of the singers themselves have been gruesomely murdered.

What's being done to fight them?

Since 2006, Mexico's right-wing president, Felipe Calderon, has made the battle with the drug cartels his signature policy. He has despatched more than 30,000 soldiers and federal police officers into the nine states where the cartels are strongest, and repeatedly purged corrupt officials. Human rights activists complain of army brutality and local officials object to central interference, but the campaign is having an effect: cocaine prices in America rose 44 per cent between January and September last year, with shortages of the drug reported in 37 cities, while seizures on the US side of the border fell 20 per cent in the first half of 2007. But though Calderon has an approval rating of 60 per cent, many ordinary Mexicans fear that he has unleashed a multi-billion dollar drugs war that cannot be contained.

How bad is the violence?

"The level of brutality rivals that of death squads in Iraq," is the verdict of a report prepared for Rick Perry, the governor of Texas, whose border with Mexico abuts Nuevo Laredo, the scene of some of the worst fighting. As in Iraq, decapitation has become a terror tactic for the cartels. Eleven headless bodies were found together in the tourist resort of Merida last month, while the head of a local police commander in Acapulco was found attached to a fence outside his office in June 2006. Those fighting the cartels are in constant danger: around 450 soldiers and police officers have been killed so far this year, and the acting chief of Mexico's federal police force was assassinated in May. Judges and politicians, meanwhile, face the dilemma of plata o plomo - silver or lead: be bribed or die.

What about civilians?

In the worst-affected cities, bystanders are caught in a three-way crossfire of inter-gang fighting and government raids. Kidnapping has soared 40 per cent since 2004, giving the country the highest kidnap rate in the world. This has prompted many middle-class Mexicans, not just the super-rich, to take out ransom insurance and have micro-chips inserted in their arms to track their locations at all times. It was the kidnap and murder of 14-year-old Fernando Marti (he was killed after the ransom was paid) that led to a series of mass protests against the cartels in Mexican cities in late August.

Who is arming the gangs?

If the drugs flow north from Mexico, the guns come south from the US. As well as assault rifles and powerful handguns - mostly bought at gun shows in Texas - the gangs have machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and shoulder-fired missiles, bought on the black market. They have even taken to using submarines: in July, a 31ft submarine was intercepted carrying six tonnes of cocaine from Colombia. The leading cartels even employ former soldiers and special forces operatives - known as sicarios ('hit men') - hired from across Latin America. The Gulf cartel, for instance, has 'The Zetas': a paramilitary group formed by deserters from Mexico's Special Forces Airmobile Group.

And how high does their influence reach?

Close ties between Mexico's drug cartels and its law-abiding establishment have existed for decades and are one of the major obstacles to defeating them. The gangs have penetrated every level of government, from local police to army generals to presidential aides. Surprise raids are impossible because, as deputy secretary of public security Patricio Arias puts it, "everyone in the world knows we're coming". In 2005, a fifth of all 7,000 agents in Mexico's Federal Investigative Agency were inspected for corruption, and the entire police force of Nuevo Laredo was suspended.

What's the US doing about this?

Calderon has gone cap in hand to Washington, asking for something similar to the $5bn 'Plan Colombia' that has weakened the cartels there. Last October, Congress approved a three-year, $1.4bn anti-drug aid package, a third of which has been distributed. But the deal has raised the question of whether this is only Mexico's problem. The country, after all, is just a conduit for America's mighty drug habit, and many now argue that the US should be doing more to control the addictions and guns that feed the current violence. ·