Zeta Gang Members in Mexico City Jailbreak

By Kyle Bussewitz

I would like to start by sharing an article I read discussing the recent prison riots in Mexico City, Mexico. The breakout included the killing of 44 members of the Gulf cartel. The 30 escaped convicts all belonged to the Zeta gang members, who's rival cartel is the Gulf. The two gangs, former allies, are now at war for control of part of Mexico's drug trade and other criminal enterprises. The 30 escapees were apparently allowed to leave the prison with no resistance. This leads the officials to believe that the guards allowed the prisons to leave, most likely for a bribe. Shortly after this occurred Rodrigo Medina, the governor Nuevo Leon, gave a press conference and offered over 800,000 thousand dollars in rewards for information leading to the capture of these criminals. The violence in the prison is a regular thing in Mexico. Mexico's National Human Rights Commission says 467 inmates have been killed since the beginning of 2009 — shot, bludgeoned, stabbed or burned to death. The prison, which is located at Apacado, was holding twice as many inmates as it was built to hold. This is also a common problem in Mexico because of the increasing amount of members associated with the drug cartels. This is a problem that just keeps growing in Mexico. The drug cartels keep growing because of an increase in demand and increase in prices. When the drug cartels keep growing more and more people get involved which eventually cause more people to be arrested and put into jail. You can see how this can keep tumbling into a very big problem. (More sources.)

Introduction to the Mexican Drug War

By Jon Nelson

The Mexican Drug War was officially announced in 2006 when Felipe Calderon was elected president of Mexico. Much of the violence is caused by the fight against illegal drug trafficking throughout Mexico, and attempts to smuggle drugs across the border to sell to people in the United States. To make matters worse, "dirty cops and double-dealing politicians" (CNN) in Mexico are assisting the Cartel by turning their heads the other way and helping traffickers safely elude drug enforcement. It is said that over the last 5 years, 48,000 people have been killed in"suspected drug-related violence" and in the first three quarters of2011, the Mexican federal attorney general announced that almost 13,000 people died due to it. 5,000 people are also currently missing and thousands of children have become orphaned because of the violence. 

The problem is not only in Mexicobut along the U.S. side of the border as well. Many cartel traffickers have been spotted on college campuses in the United States looking for recruitsbecause they primary look for younger people to help them out with the moves.The reason these cartel are so ruthless is because the top organizations areestimated to make 39 billion dollars annually from trafficking drugs and willto anything to eliminate those standing in their way of money. "South ofthe border it costs $2,000 to produce a kilo of cocaine from leaf to lab, theDEA said. In the U.S., a kilo's street value ranges from $34,000 to $120,000,depending on the ZIP code where it's pushed" (CNN). 

 The 2011 U.S. Department of Justice report suggests thatMexican traffickers "control the flow of most of the cocaine, heroin,foreign-produced marijuana and methamphetamine in the UnitedStates." Drug transportation in Mexico is controlled by six different cartels: the Sinaloa, the Gulf, the Juarez, the Knights Templar, the Tijuana, and the Los Zetas. The Los Zetas Cartel is known for being the most violent and has been linked to setting fire to a casino causing 52 deaths, shooting 72 people dead on a Tamaulipas farm, a couple of mass graves, and many other treacherous acts. Although some progress has been made in the war against the Cartel, there is still much resistance and it doesn't help that there are crooked police officers and politicians. One of the next big coming events in this is the 2012 Mexico Presidential Election, which will determine who takes control of the country and how the rest of this war will be fought.