Mexico Drug War: List Of Missing Raises Doubts In Mexico

By E. EDUARDO CASTILLO 12/22/12 03:48 PM ET EST

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Drug War, Mexico, Mexico's Drug War, Mexican Drug War, Drug Cartels, Mexico Abductions, Mexico Drug War, Mexico Missing In Drug War, World News

MEXICO CITY -- Federal police officer Luis Angel Leon Rodriguez disappeared in 2009 along with six fellow police as they headed to the western state of Michoacan to fight drug traffickers.
Since then, his mother, Araceli Rodriguez, has taken it into her own hands to investigate her son's disappearance and has publicized the case inside and outside Mexico. She's found some clues about what happened but still doesn't have any certainty about her son's whereabouts.
As Mexican troops and police cracked down on drug cartels, who also battled among themselves, Leon was just one of thousands of people who went missing amid a wave of violence that stunned the nation. A new report by a civic participation group has put a number for the first time on the human toll: 20,851 people disappeared over the past six years, although not every case on the list has been proven related to the drug war.

In Drug Fight on Texas Border, Some Officers Play Both Sides

By MANNY FERNANDEZ

Published: January 2, 2013

MISSION, Tex. — Drug traffickers have long profited here and in other Texas border towns. But their success has sometimes depended on forging unusual alliances.

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Joel Martinez/The Monitor, via Associated Press

Chief Martin Garza Jr. of the Mission Police Department. Two of his officers were fired after being accused of corruption in December.

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Some of the very officers sworn to combat the drug trade have been illicitly earning cash by helping vehicles transporting marijuana and cocaine avoid detection from law enforcement agents, serving as escorts and scouts during the shipments, the authorities say.

Last month, four lawmen — two Hidalgo County sheriff’s deputies and two Mission police officers — were arrested and accused of escorting loads of drugs in exchange for cash after a corruption investigation led by the Drug Enforcement Administration, the F.B.I. and other agencies. In court documents filed by federal investigators, the four men were accused of escorting vehicles carrying cocaine for $2,000 to $6,000 per trip.

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Mexican troops pursued and shot dead 12 suspected criminals in a gun battle in Zacatecas state, which lies on a key drug-smuggling route in central Mexico, the BBC reported.
Agence France-Presse reported the fighting broke out Wednesday after the two sides ran into each other in the city of Rio Grande. Troops chased the suspects for more than 30 miles until the town of Sombrerete.
Two women and 10 men were killed in the clash, Mexican newspaper Milenio reported.
On New Year’s Eve, the Mexican navy arrested 18 suspected drug traffickers in the same state, the BBC reported.
Those detained included 12 boys and a woman with a baby.
Tens of thousands of people have been killed in drug-related violence in Mexico in recent years as the previous administration under former President Felipe Calderon waged a deadly war against the country's powerful drug cartels.
More from GlobalPost: More Mexico news 

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