Collateral Damage: Six Police Officers Held in Fatal Abduction of Mayor; Profits flow from cartels to US banks

The corruption of  the Mexican police system by the drug cartels not only claims another victim,  Mayor Cavazos, it further undermines Mexican civic society.  


In the second article, the New York Daily News adds its voice to the increasing questioning of the drug war strategy. It reviews the already known facts, but adds an emphasis on the profits earned by some US gun dealers and, more importantly, by US banks that participate in laundering billions of dollars of cartel profits.


Mexico - 6 Police Officers Held in Fatal Abduction of Mayor : "Five local police officers and a transit officer have been arrested in connection with this week’s kidnapping and killing of Mayor Edelmiro Cavazos of Santiago, a town about 20 miles south of Monterrey in the northern state of Nuevo Leon, state officials said on Friday. One suspect had been assigned as a guard to Mayor Cavazos, and the others are accused of acting as lookouts for a group of gunmen who took the mayor from his home on Sunday night." August 20, 2010, NY Times

Bloody Mexico drug war boosts U.S. gun shops, banks: The mayhem in Mexico has gotten so bad that President Felipe Calderon launched an unprecedented public debate and political summit on ways to end the war, possibly by legalizing drugs. ... The country's tourism is dying, its industry is suffering and thousands have fled violence-plagued border cities like Tijuana, Matamoros and Juarez. 

Meanwhile, two industries in the U.S. are flourishing from Mexico's tragedy. More than 7,000 gun shops have sprouted on the U.S. side of the border, and their owners seem not to care where the merchandise goes. Three-quarters of the 84,000 weapons, including high-powered assault rifles, that Mexican officials have seized since 2006, originated in the U.S. Then there are the banks. On March 12, federal prosecutors in Miami charged Wachovia Bank with repeatedly failing to report possible money-laundering activity by money-transfer firms from Mexico that used the bank. Some of the more than $370 billion wired to Wachovia from Mexico bought planes here that were used to transport drugs. August 21, 2010, NY Daily News