Mexican Drug Cartels Making Audacious Pitch for Recruits
Mexican Drug Cartels Making Audacious Pitch for Recruits - washingtonpost.com
NUEVO LAREDO, Mexico — The job offer was tempting.It was printed on a 16-foot-wide banner and strung above one of the busiest roads here, calling out to any “soldier or ex-soldier.”
“We’re offering you a good salary, food and medical care for your families,” it said in block letters.
But there was a catch: The employer was Los Zetas, a notorious Gulf cartel hit squad formed by elite Mexican army deserters. The group even included a phone number for job seekers that linked to a voice mailbox.
Outrageous as they seem, drug cartel messages such as the banner hung here late last month are becoming increasingly common along the violence-savaged U.S.-Mexico border and in other parts of the region. As soldiers wage a massive campaign against drug trafficking across Mexico, they are encountering an information war managed by criminal networks that operate with near impunity.
“The cartels are very good at this — they’ve had songs written about them, they put up these signs, they make themselves out to be Robin Hoods,” Carlos Martínez, a Nuevo Laredo elementary school principal and community activist, said in an interview.
The banners also appeal to many poorer Mexicans who respect the brashness of the cartels, which provide food, clothing and toys to win civilians’ loyalty.
Marcelino, a 74-year-old pensioner who did not provide his last name for fear of retribution, said that he had been wronged plenty of times by police but that drug traffickers had given him a sturdy mountain bike.
Marcelino said police had harassed his neighbors, trumping up phony criminal violations and extracting bribes to avoid incarceration. Previous local governments tried to throw him and other squatters off government land. Drug traffickers, however, sided with the squatters, earning their enduring gratitude by paying to build cinder-block shacks and distributing clothing.
“I trust the Zetas more than the thieving police and soldiers,” Marcelino said. “The police are rats.”
Once they join drug gangs, the deserters seem “cool” to many people, according to Martínez. Children in his neighborhood see banners advertising jobs in drug gangs and connect those images with the suddenly prosperous deserters, and other cartel recruits, they meet on the streets. With few opportunities for employment in Mexico’s weak economy, the prospect of joining a gang is appealing, he said.
And of course, what is fueling the massive profits for murderous Mexican drug cartels more than anything is the prohibition of drugs in the United States and failure to provide treatment and rehabilitation rather than arrest and incarceration for drug addicts. Without countering demand, we will never affect supply.
However, we will never eliminate demand for drugs in this country or any other; it is human nature for some to seek altered states of consciousness. Therefore, it behooves us to take the production, marketing, merchandising and distribution of drugs out of the hands of black market criminals. All we accomplish by prohibiting drugs is more violence, corrupt cops, and wealthy drug gangs.
Tags: Mexico
