The Crusaders of Meth: Mexico's Deadly Knights Templar - TIME: "At first, the amateur video shows a normal evening in the seething valley town of Apatzingán, in Mexico's western Michoacán state. But as residents and stall owners mix jovially on the sidewalk, the calm is broken by the sudden, sinister appearance of masked men gripping machine guns mounted on more than 50 pickup trucks, Hummers and Jeeps. The gangsters cruise openly down Apatzingán's main drag, a frightening show of force even by the brutal standards of Mexico's drug-war bloodbath. The propaganda video was sent to media outlets by the newest players in that conflict, the bizarrely named Caballeros Templarios, or the Knights Templar. ...
In December, federal police allegedly killed La Familia's criminal and spiritual leader, Nazario Moreno, alias El Mas Loco, or The Craziest One. On June 21, police arrested his No. 2, José de Jesús Méndez, alias El Chango, or The Monkey. As The Monkey was paraded before reporters on Wednesday, Mexican police said La Familia had been devastated — a vindication of Calderón's controversial military campaign against the cartels.
But the rise of the Knights Templar from the ashes of La Familia shows the fundamental problem of the drug war: whenever one set of bad guys is taken down, another steps up to take their place, largely because Mexico has few if any real investigative police institutions to halt the vicious cycle. The Knights are purportedly headed by an old lieutenant of Moreno, Servando Gómez, a former school teacher from Michoacán's rugged hills, where meth labs abound like hillbilly stills. "
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