Drug Cartels in Mexico: A Timeline of Total Barbarity

Have the Mexican Drug Cartels become #1 Organized Crime threat in America?

     In 2006, Mexican president Felipe Calderon

Felipe Calderon

launched a crackdown against drug trafficking in conjunction with the United States.  50,000 have been killed from December 2006 through December 2011 and it seems to be getting even worse recently.  In fact, mass body dumping have increased in the past 6 months.  These drug gang kingpins are millionaires and will stop at nothing to keep their product on the market. At this time, there are two dominant drug cartels in Mexico the Sinaloa and the Los Zetas.  The Sinaloa are led by drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman,

Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman

 whom Forbes recently listed as the most influential drug trafficker in history, worth an estimated $1 billion.  The Los Zetas are led by Osiel Cardenas Guillen.



 Osiel Cardenas Guillen



 The Zetas are a transient gang, they do not have a real territory or secure income, contrary to the Sinaloa who have a secure income mostly from cocaine trafficking, and they are more strategic and have their own smuggling routes and territories.  However, the Zetas are more heavily armed.

     Lately the drug cartels are targeting the media for expose the problem.  According to Javier Trevino a former Lieutenant Governor of Nuevo Leon, all of the recent acts are part of a strategy to get attention.  These drug gangs have penetrated the boarders coming through California and Arizona, and these boarder towns are like war zones.  There are street gangs with cartel ties in both LA and Dallas and scattered around in small cities all over the United States. In 2008 the Justice Department claimed there were 230 cities in the United States with ties to the drug cartels and this number is rising.  Although the violence is motley in Mexico, there have been many killings and abductions in the United States linked to the cartels in Mexico.  Why?  There is a demand for the product and Mexican heroin is cheaper than Columbian and is now more prevalent in the U.S. What scares me is that drug traffickers will stop at nothing, even recruiting young children from the United States to join the gangs.  According to authorities, a 14 year old boy from San Diego became a cartel assassin.  "I slit their throats" he said on a trial in Cuernavala.  He is known as "El Ponchis"  or the Cloak and was sentenced to 3 years in a Mexican jail.

     The timeline of violence is almost incomprehensible.  On February 7, 2012:  Suspected Zetas member led the marines to at least 15 bodies in Veracruz.  On March 7, 2012: 16 bodies were found in Monterrey.  March 15, 2012:  reported that 330 bodies have been found since April in Durango.  March 18, 2012:  12 policemen were shot down when searching for the bodies of the decapitated individuals found earlier.

April 12, 2012:  7 bodies found bound and tortured in Lazaro Cardenas with messages by allies of the Sinaloa drug cartel.  April 17, 2012: 14 men were found mutilated in a van in Nueve Laredo.  May 5, 2012:  23 decapitated bodies were found hanging off a bridge in Nuevo Laredo.  May 9, 2012:  18 dismembered bodies were found in Guadalajara. Perhaps the worst yet, happening just days ago on May 13, 2012:  49 mutilated bodies were dumped on a Mexican Highway.  Monterrey Mexico is a region where the two gangs are trying to outdo each other.  Pools of blood are accumulating while these drug gangs are at war over smuggling routes.  All of the bodies were without heads according to authorities and with the bodies was a banner scrawled with a message from the Zetas drug gang taking responsibility for the killings.

     Violence in Mexico's drug underworld has reached an epidemic level.  The bloodshed seems to have reached its highest peak in the past month.  It took decades to destroy the American Mafia.  How long will this massacre last?