John Gelb's List: Black Markets

• in November Noe Ramírez, the prosecutor in charge of the organised-crime unit of the federal attorney-general’s office, was charged with taking bribes of $450,000 a month to pass information to the Sinaloa drug mob.
• 1970s and 1980s, the main smuggling route involved island-hopping across the Caribbean from Colombia in light aircraft. It was the success of America’s drug warriors in shutting down this route that brought big-time organised crime to Mexico, as the Colombians began to send drugs that way. In Mexico, relatively small gangs had long run heroin and marijuana across the border. Their move into cocaine made them far more powerful.
• Two things helped them grow. The first was proximity to the United States. They gained control of retail distribution in many American cities, allowing them to dictate terms to the Colombians. And they continue to arm themselves with ease in American gunshops and launder their profits in American banks.
• Mr Calderón has stepped up the extradition of drug-traffickers to the United States, sending more than 180 north so far. They can’t go on running their businesses from American prisons, as they can from most Mexican ones.
• 60% of the killings are concentrated in just three of Mexico’s 32 states, and most of these in three cities: Ciudad Juárez in Chihuahua and Tijuana in Baja California, both just across the American border; and Culiacán in Sinaloa.
• more than 800 police and soldiers have also died since December 2006
• regulation of the sale of arms in the United States would have a bigger impact. He points out that of 107,000 gunshops in the United States, 12,000 are close to the Mexican border and their sales are much higher than the average.
• One of the most violent of the drug gangs, known as the Zetas, is made up of special-forces troops who changed sides a decade ago. Hitherto, the government has been unable to provide its police forces with sufficient pay and protection to make it worthwhile resisting the threats and blandishments of the traffickers.

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