Cartels recruit Guatemalans in Mexico drug war

[71ragtopgoat 23]

If you think they are just infiltrating south of the border then I have a bridge I want to sell you.

 

ACAYUCAN, Mexico - On a balmy evening in April, five sport-utility vehicles full of gunmen roared up to the gates of the immigration detention center here.

 

The gunmen pointed assault rifles at the guardhouse but entered without firing a shot. They loaded up 13 Guatemalan detainees. Then, they sped off into the night.

 

 

The raid is evidence of a disturbing new trend in the U.S.-backed war against Mexico's drug cartels. The gunmen were apparently drug-cartel henchmen, and the people they freed were Central Americans who had been on their way to a cartel training camp.

 

Mexican traffickers are increasingly turning to Central America for reinforcements, ammunition and help from corrupt authorities there, experts say. The cartels are training Central American recruits at camps in Guatemala and Mexico, infiltrating weak Central American police forces and carving out "safe zones" in foreign countries beyond the reach of Mexican authorities.

 

The developments reflect a major shift in drug-smuggling patterns and show the cartels' continuing ability to evolve to avoid Mexico's U.S.-backed crackdown, which began in 2006, said Helen Mack, president of the Myrna Mack Foundation, a group that studies crime issues in Guatemala.

 

"The Mexicans are gaining ground here, and the police can't stop them," Mack said.

 

Three days after the April 19 raid in Acayucan, six of the freed Guatemalans were recaptured in Tlaxcala state, hundreds of miles away. They told authorities they were on their way to a Zeta cartel training camp in the northern Mexican state of San Luis Potos