Mexican Army corrupted and now largest Drug Cartel in Mexico
The Mexican Army is known to be corrupt and now is believed by many to be the biggest Mexican Drug Cartel of all.
Most U.S. law-enforcement officials working alongside of the Mexican Army and other Mexican law enforcement believe they are corrupt and very much involved in drug and human trafficking. Those same sources acknowledge the involvement at the highest levels of the Mexican military and lower level officers and the troops on the ground are being paid off by the other cartels and are directly now trafficking in the lucrative narcotics and migrant smuggling business on a national bases. In addition some human-rights organizations charge that Mexican soldiers, lacking in police training, have been increasingly involved in abuses including murder, rape, and forced disappearances. New York-based Human Rights Watch says accusations of abuse lodged with Mexico's National Human Rights Commission, an autonomous government agency, skyrocketed to over 2500 complaints in 2010 from just 182 complaints in 2006.
The Calderon administration now admits that corruption in Mexico's military has become an increasing problem as the army took the lead in fighting the country's powerful and rich Mexican Drug Cartels (MDC's), but stops short of acknowledging that the Mexican Army has become a Mexican Drug Cartel . President Felipe Calderón put the military on the front lines of the nation's drug war when he came to power in 2006. Since then, Mr. Calderón tried to quell a wave of violence using the army by taking over policing duties from corrupt police departments in parts of the country.
“Many Mexican police agencies along the border are in the pay of the narcotraficantes and the corruption extends to high-ranking key Mexican military officers.”
And “Drug cartels spend $500 million a year to pay off corrupt Mexican generals and police officials.”
Former Congressman Tancredo went on to say: “There’s no doubt Mexican military units along the border are being controlled by drug cartels, and not by Mexico City. The military units operate freely, with little or no direction, and several of them have made numerous incursions into the United States.”
Just recently the Laguna Journal and the U.S. Border Fire Report learned from a U.S. diplomatic cable, that a Mexican officer assigned to guard President Felipe Calderón was accused of leaking information to drug cartels in exchange for bribes, training hit men through a private security firm, and supplying military weapons to groups like the Los Zetas.
The document also said another official who worked for Calderón leaked a copy of the president's medical file to one of the cartels.
Concerning the accused military officer, "the cartels were using the information to avoid heightened security around the president, not to target him personally," said the document disclosed by online whistleblower Wiki Leaks.
The arrest represents the most serious security breach to date in the Calderon Administration and the Mexican Army. However, this news gathering organization has been told by U.S. Law enforcement that a full fledged investigation by the United States which involves the strong possibility that information leaked to the Zetas cartel by high ranking military personal within the inner circles of the Calderon administration may have lead and made it possible for the ambush and brutal murder and wounding of ICE's two agents last week.
The document classified secret identified the suspected officer as Mexican army Maj. Arturo González Rodríguez.
González also stands accused of leaking military intelligence, training MDC's hit men through a private security company and supplying military weapons to other MDC's, including los Zetas."
The Zetas are suspected of being involved in the Feb. 15 shooting assault on two Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in central Mexico, according to sources close to the investigation.
ICE Special Agent Victor Avila of El Paso was wounded, while ICE Special Agent Jaime Zapata of Brownsville died at the scene. They were assigned to liaison duties in Mexico.
Former ICE official Miguel Contreras said he was not surprised by the infiltration of cartel assets in Mexico's military and law enforcement.
"I was at a gathering in Mexico more than 20 years ago when the first commander of the Mexican Federal Judicial Police pulled out a copy of a DEA report that was about him and read it to us," Contreras said. "He told us he knew the DEA agent who wrote the report, and he also told us that 'whatever you do or write, we are going to know about it.' The DEA report he had was a sensitive document that someone had leaked to him."
The U.S. diplomatic cable dated Jan. 20, 2009, said that Mexican officials tried to downplay "the seriousness of the breach" related to the army officer's bribery case.
"The second unsettling aspect of the case is that González apparently had been on the cartel payroll since 2005, during which time he held different positions in the government," the U.S. cable said. "As he changed assignments, he was kept on as a cartel asset, and the nature of his involvement with the cartels changed."
The cable that originated in the U.S. Embassy in Mexico.
Also, "One source advised that Calderón's medical file was passed to a (drug cartel) by a corrupt member of Calderón's inner circle," according to the U.S. diplomatic cable.
This isn't the first time army officers have been linked to MDC's.
Despite such incidents, many Mexicans believe Mr. Calderón had little choice but to use the armed forces. Many of the country's 1,600 municipal and state police forces are corrupt and act as armed branches of Mexico's warring drug cartels, government officials say. Retraining Mexico's police to better deal with the threat will take at least a decade, officials say, during which soldiers will have to bear the main burden in the war against the drug cartels.
In the past, when the military has become involved in counternarcotics policy, it hasn't proved immune to corruption or human-rights abuses. Twelve years ago, Gen. Jesus Gutiérrez Rebollo, Mexico's newly named drug czar, was found to be working for a top drug trafficker; he is now in jail. A decade earlier, top Mexican military officials were implicated in a vast marijuana-trafficking operation whose discovery led to the torture and murder of U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent Enrique Camarena.
The army, with its low salaries and high desertion rate, also has proved as vulnerable to corruption as police, who often have acted as hired guns for smugglers. Five Mexican soldiers, including a major, were indicted on charges of leaking information on their unit's movements to members of the Sinaloa drug cartel.
"The amount of money is huge," said Luis Garfias, a retired three-star general who said he fended off entreaties while stationed on the border in Mexicali . "You like women? You like alcohol? It's free for you. Completely free, and dangerous."
In the 1990s, then-President Ernesto Zedillo ordered the air force to chase drug flights and named an army general as the nation's top anti-drug officer.
That general, Jose de Jesus Gutierrez Rebollo, was later convicted on charges that he helped Amado Carrillo Fuentes, reputed head of the Juarez cartel.
"Mid-level Mexican Army Major Arturo González Rodríguez was arrested the week of December 21, 2008, for allegedly assisting Mexican drug trafficking organizations for ($100,000 U.S. dollars) a month.
"Based on statements from a former cartel member turned witness code-named 'Jennifer,' PGR (federal attorney general's office) has accused González of passing information related to the activities and travel plans of Mexican President Felipe Calderón to the Arturo Beltran Levya organization (ABLO).
http://www.allvoices.com/contributed...rtel-in-mexico
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