"Mapping areas of operation of Mexican criminal groups"

[longknife]

. Michele Coscia and Viridiana Rios

How Drug Cartels Conquered Mexico [MAPS] -- Business Insider

It is now possible to see the conquest of drug cartels over Mexico.

Viridiana Rios and Michele Coscia of Harvard University created a program called MOGO that searches specialized blogs, local newspapers and Google News for references to the different cartels, their locations and their influence between 1999 and 2011.

The results show how since 2006—when Mexican President Felipe Calderon declared an all-out war against drug traffickers in the country— the cartels have only gotten stronger. Meanwhile, more than 100,000 Mexicans have been killed.

Read more ....http://www.businessinsider.com/how-7-drug-cartels-conquered-mexico-2012-11?op=1

Comment: Bottom line .... Mexico is losing the drug war .... and some may even say that they have lost it.

Mexico's new conservative president takes office in December and has declared he will no longer accept the current situation. The Mexican army and marines will be called out to man checkpoints and work to ensure corruption among the civilian police is dealt with. We can only hope this will work.

 

[waltky]

Uh-oh, sounds like new Mexican gov't. getting ready to throw in the towel, let drug cartels run rampant...

Mexico's war on cartels made drug crisis worse, says new government
Wednesday 19 December 2012 - Strategy of killing gang leaders has led to proliferation of smaller and more dangerous groups, says new attorney general

The fracturing of Mexico's organised crime syndicates by a government-led crackdown on drug cartels has created between 60 and 80 new trafficking gangs, according to the nation's attorney general – far more than were active six years ago. Speaking on Mexican radio on Tuesday, the attorney general, Jesús Murillo Karam, said former president Felipe Calderón's efforts to stamp out drug trafficking by going after the kingpins had only succeeded in splintering the gangs, spawning many smaller and more dangerous criminal syndicates. The critique extended an attack by President Enrique Peña Nieto's new government on Calderón's security policy, which focused on killing and capturing the heads of cartels.

Alleged drug cartel lieutenant Edgar 'La Barbie' Valdez Villareal, under arrest in Mexico in 2010.

Murillo Karam told MVS Radio officials were working to identify all of the country's 60 to 80 small- and medium-sized drug trafficking gangs. In its last public evaluation of the strength of Mexico's cartels, the Calderón administration issued a report in August naming only eight large organisations. It said, however, that at least one cartel – the Beltrán-Leyva group – had split into fragments after a government offensive that killed its leader. Murillo Karam elaborated on the new administration's criticism of the Calderón strategy, holding it directly responsible for a rise in kidnappings and related crimes over the last six years. "It led to the seconds-in-command – generally the most violent, the most capable of killing – starting to be empowered and generating their own groups, generating another type of crime, spawning kidnapping, extortion and protection rackets," he said.

The secretary of the interior, Miguel Ángel Osorio Chong, launched the critique of Calderón's strategy by telling a meeting of Mexico's national security council on Monday that while financial resources dedicated to security had more than doubled, crime had increased, and with the capture of dozens of drug capos, cartels had splintered and become more dangerous. Calderón repeatedly emphasised before leaving office that his forces had captured 25 of Mexico's 37 most-wanted drug lords – a strategy backed by the US government with hundreds of millions in funding and close co-operation with American law enforcement, military and intelligence agencies. Osorio Chong and Peña Nieto have promised to move away from that focus on leaders and towards reducing crimes against ordinary citizens – most importantly homicides, kidnappings and extortion. Nearly three weeks into their administration, however, they have offered few details on how they will do that.

Source