Big news with the drug war down south. The Mexican Navy kills Beltran Leyva, a major drug boss with a two million dollar bounty on his head. No word if anyone actually collected on that bounty.
The other story that grabbed my attention is the new security jefe in Tijuana. This guy is definitely working on being ‘bad ass of the week’. I just hope he stays alive long enough to do some damage upon the cartels.
Finally, I would like to say that if Mexico thinks they are doing all they can to stop these guys, think again. Mexico could certainly open up the cartel killing market using the Letter of Marque concept, and open up a new front in the drug war.
Mexico has a bounty system for these cartels already, but in order for it to work properly, they need to bring in companies under that system. Individuals, who have no way of protecting themselves and fear retribution if they turn in a drug boss or his buddies, are not likely to partake in a bounty system. But entire companies will join in, because they have the means to protect itself and usually has the kind of guys who can take care of themselves.
And if there are hundreds of companies going after cartels, along with the police and military, well then you have a diversified strategy with a total drug war concept. More importantly, they need to give the companies involved with taking on the cartels, legal protections–hence the reason behind the LoM.
One last thing. Mexico is not a signatory of the Declaration of Paris. And what is really cool about the LoM, is it is warfare on the cheap. Just the kind of solution a country would need in case they ran out of money do to a protracted war or were in a deep recession because of other factors throughout the world.
Drug cartels are loaded with loot, they fight to bring over billions of dollars of hard cash into the US in order to launder it, and they buy all sorts of ridiculous things with that money. Privateers would love to take that wealth away from the cartels as well as kill or capture individuals to collect on the state offered bounties. Seems pretty logical to me. Dios mio. –Matt
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Death of a Mexican drug lord
Mexican forces won this battle, killing Arturo Beltran Leyva. But the war is far from over.
December 19, 2009
Understandably, Mexican President Felipe Calderon is trumpeting the navy’s success in taking down Arturo Beltran Leyva, wanted in the United States and Mexico for his part in the $15-billion to $20-billion-a-year drug trade. He was a criminal known to behead his rivals and believed to be responsible for last year’s killing of the federal police chief in his Mexico City home; he was the most powerful cartel boss to be removed by security forces since Calderon launched his drug war in 2006. The operation reportedly was the result of improved U.S.-Mexican intelligence cooperation, and although the naval troops failed to take Beltran Leyva and six cohorts alive, it should yield a trove of new information. Moreover, the battle between cartel grenades and the navy’s mounted machine guns was carried out without civilian casualties or, apparently, some of the other abuses that have marked army operations.For all the accomplishments, however, the operation reveals the extent of unfinished business in Calderon’s campaign. Beltran Leyva was discovered at a luxury apartment complex near the governor’s mansion in the city of Cuernavaca, just south of the national capital. Clearly he felt he had bought enough protection from security forces to stray far from his home base in Sinaloa and into the weekend getaway for Mexico City’s rich. But someone either infiltrated his inner circle or turned on him — possibly for the $2-million bounty on his head. (more…)
