War Without Borders - Mexico's Drug Traffickers Continue Trade in Prison - Series - NYTimes.com - 0 views
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Mexico’s prisons, as described by inmates and insiders and viewed during several visits, are places where drug traffickers find a new base of operations for their criminal empires, recruit underlings, and bribe their way out for the right price. The system is so flawed, in fact, that the Mexican government is extraditing record numbers of drug traffickers to the United States, where they find it much harder to intimidate witnesses, run their drug operations or escape.
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The United States government, as part of its counternarcotics assistance program, is committing $4 million this year to help fix Mexico’s broken prisons, officials said
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Mexico’s prisons are bursting at the seams, with space for 172,151 inmates nationwide but an additional 50,000 crammed in. More arrive by the day as part of the government’s drug war, which has sent tens of thousands to prison since President Felipe Calderón took office nearly three years ago.
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The number of escapes at the Zacatecas prison in Mexico has increased over the past few years to an astronomical number thanks to the escape plans of Zetas, a paramilitary group. By paying off the prison guards, the inmates have been able to smuggle everything from cell phones and designer clothes to prostitutes in and bribe their way to larger cell blocks. The close knit relationship the drug cartel have formed with prison guards and federal officers begs the question: who in Mexico is actually fulfilling their duty to serve the public and protect?