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Mexican drug barons seized in nationwide American swoop
Ed Harris23.10.09
More than 300 people have been arrested in drugs raids across the US in the largest single strike at Mexico's drug operations in America.
An astonishing haul of weapons and cash was recovered as federal agents swooped on people suspected of links to La Familia, the newest and most violent of Mexico's drug cartels.
La Familia is based in the state of Michoacá* in south-western Mexico but its members extend coast to coast and deep into America.
Arrests were carried out across 19 states and in 38 cities including Boston, Seattle and Raleigh, North Carolina.
La Familia has grown a reputation for dominating the trade in methamphetamine - or "crank" - and grotesque violence, including beheadings.
One of the gang's alleged recruiters, detained last spring, ran drug rehabilitation centres and then forced recovered addicts to work for the gang or be killed, said Mexico public safety secretary, Genaro Garcia Luna.
In July, after a dozen Mexican police officers were found murdered, officials say alleged cartel leader, Servando Gomez-Martinez, proclaimed his membership of La Familia and said the gang was locked in a battle with police.
Attorney-general Eric Holder said: "We have to work with our Mexican counterparts to cut off the heads of these snakes, to get at the heads of the cartels; indict them; try them; if they're in Mexico, extradite them to the US."
The raids were part of Project Coronado, which has led to almost 1,200 arrests over four years.
Mexico's president Felipe Calderon has deployed more than 45,000 troops to fight drug gangs since he took office in 2006.
However, more than 11,000 people have been killed in drug-related violence in that time.
In Dallas, Texas, 77 suspects were charged and face a combination of federal and state charges.
Reader views (2)
Yeah Ken, there was no trouble before this new group started up, and there won't be any more now that these 77 have been arrested. What an odd perspective you have on the world at large, mate. It helps to know what you're talking about before you start pontificating and shoehorning personal dislikes into situations thousands of miles away from you. Another possible route to being taken seriously is the ability to add 1+1 and get the same answer three times in a row.
Your readiness to ridicule of others and situations you know nothing about suggests to me, at least, that you'd strike out on both instances. I could be wrong - hopefully I am. No one should be that hopeless.
- Rogan, Irving
Seventy seven charged in Dallas, Texas tends to imply that unless these gangs set up in an instant, they were there or developing right under the nose of former President George W. Bush in his home state.
We have to wonder how many lives could have been saved, and families not destroyed, leading directly to tomorrow's generation of further drug criminals, had George Bush had had the guts to do the same?
- Ken.H, Harrow. UK
