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Mexican Government To Adopt Quieter Approach With Drug Cartels

Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto has been in office less than a month, and already he may be signalling an abandonment of the aggressive strategy against the drug cartels by his predecessor Felipe Calderon.

The Peña Nieto administration is claiming that Calderon's "efforts to stamp out drug trafficking by going after the kingpins has only succeeded in splintering the gangs, spawning many smaller and more dangerous criminal syndicates" as reported by The Guardian.

President Peña Nieto and his team have offered no details on an alternative strategy by which to bring down the narco insurgents which grip Mexico only to oddly state that "the pursuit of capos . . . will be a quieter affair than during the Calderon administration," and "their neutralization presented with less fanfare" as reported by Richard Fausset for the Los Angeles Times.

It's unclear what the Peña Nieto administration means by offering a quieter approach in dealing with the drug cartels, and hopefully it does not entail negotiating a secret pact by which the narcos are allowed to operate in exchange for peace.  In the past some branches within the Italian government allegedly made deals with the devil to end the Mafia's stragismo -- strategy of terror -- to disasterous results.

When Peña Nieto won the Presidential election last July some predicted a capitulation to the cartels as then reported by Erin Carlyle for Forbes:  "the new government is likely to be a lot less confrontational with people like the world's most powerful druglord: billionaire Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman Loera."

Who knows:  the fix may already be in place.

Mexican Drug Cartels Use The United States As Global Distribution Hub

With little pushback from law enforcement within its borders the United States increasingly is serving as a global distribution hub for the Mexican drug cartels.

Last week police in Melbourne, Australia busted two suspects including a reputed "high ranking member of the Comanchero Motorcycle Club" for their alleged roles in receiving cocaine shipments from an unidentified Mexican drug cartel in the United States as reported by Andrew O'Reilly for Fox News:  "while it is unclear which cartel the outlaw motorcycle club members were working with, it is well known that Joaquín 'El Chapo' Guzmán's Sinaloa cartel has a major stake in Australia's burgeoning cocaine market."

Earlier this month Quebec police charged more than 100 individuals for their alleged roles in a drug conspiracy which used a trucking firm to bring cocaine into Canada from the United States, and the arrested include those with suspected ties to the Italian Mafia, the Irish West End Gang and Hells Angels motorcycle club as reported by The Canadian Press.

The 'Ndrangheta or Calabrian Mafia also has developled a partnership with the Mexican cartels in the United States for moving cocaine from New York City into Italy.  Nicola Gratteri, a top anti-Mafia prosecutor in Italy warns that "this mafia is quickly spreading in the United States, particularly in Florida and New York" as reported by Beatrice Borromeo for The Daily Beast:  "Gratteri's latest operations . . . uncovered a new route in the mafia's international drug trade, centered in New York City, where the crime syndicates can secure easy access to cocaine shipped in by Mexican cartels."

Security analysts are at a loss to explain why law enforcment has failed to break the distribution infrastructure which the Mexican drug cartels have established within the United States as reported by Sari Horwitz for The Washington Post:

The success of the Mexican cartels in building their massive drug distribution and marketing networks across the county is a reflection of the U.S. government's intelligence and operational failure in the war on drugs, said Fulton T. Armstrong, a former national intelligence officer for Latin America and ex-CIA officer.  "We pretend that the cartels don't have an infrastructure in the U.S.," said Armstrong, also a former staff member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and now a senior fellow at American University's Center for Latin American and Latino Studies. "But you don't do a $20 billion a year business . . . with ad-hoc, part-time volunteers. You use an established infrastructure to support the markets. How come we're not attacking that infrastructure?"

Let's face it:  the U.S. is just a druggie nation.

Report: El Chapo's Daughter Arrested At The Border In Anchor Baby Scheme

A woman claiming to be the daughter of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, a Forbes-listed billionaire who heads the Sinaloa cartel, has been arrested at the Tijuana-San Diego border for allegedly carrying fraudulent documents in a bid to give birth to her child on U.S. soil as reported by the Los Angeles Times:

She probably wanted her children to have U.S. citizenship, which is customary for many organized crime networks. "They like to have family members that can go back and forth," the official said.

Last year El Chapo's wife gave birth to twin girls in September 2011 at Antelope Valley Hospital in Lancaster, CA.

The Bell Soon May Toll For El Chapo

The U.S. may employ Seal Team Six which took out Osama bin Laden to bring down Sinaloa drug cartel boss Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman as reported by the Daily Mail:

Mexico’s Procesor magazine reported that a new plan to get Guzman was hatched by Mexican President Felipe Calderon, who felt the only way to catch him was through a military raid. But when Calderon was turned down by Mexico's army and naval forces, he turned to the U.S. government, which has made catching or killing Guzman a priority.

Good riddance, El Chapo.

Mexican Marines Reel In Big Catch: Son Of Drug Lord Joaquin "El Chapo" In Custody

Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman is a Forbes-listed billionaire who heads the Sinaloa cartel, and in a humiliating blow to the drug kingpin Mexican marines yesterday detained his 26-year-old son Jesus Alfredo Guzman Salazar -- known as El Gordo or the Fat One -- in the western state of Jalisco as reported by Ken Ellingwood for the Los Angeles Times. 

Navy spokesman Jose Luis Vergara "said the capture was due to months of intelligence work and information from US authorities" as reported by The Associated Press:  "he said Guzman Salazar was wanted in the United States on an outstanding extradition request, to face charges in Chicago related to drug trafficking."  The Windy City is a major distribution hub for the Sinaloa cartel, and most of its product is delivered directly from Mexico by freight rail and semi trucks.

The 55-year-old El Chapo is a degenerate philanderer with many children from multiple women, and his current wife is a former beauty queen -- younger than his apprehended son -- who gave birth to twin girls in September 2011 at Antelope Valley Hospital in Lancaster, CA.

Last February Mexican federal police "nearly nabbed" Guzman at a mansion in the coastal resort town of Los Cabos in the country's southern Baja peninsula as then reported by Fox News Latino:  "the incident fuels growing speculation that authorities are closing in on Guzmán, and that the government of President Felipe Calderón is determined to grab him before his six-year term ends in December."

06/23/12 UPDATE:  Turns out the big catch was a big flop.  Mexican authorities now say that they erroneously identified the apprehended suspect as El Chapo's son the Fat One, and he really is 23-year-old Felix Beltran Leon who "works with his mother-in-law at a used car dealership" as reported by The Associated Press:  "the Attorney General's Office said that 'necessary tests' had proved that he wasn't the drug lord's son, but said he would remain under investigation for the guns and money found during his arrest."