Mexican Drug Bucks Ensnare Texas County, Sheriff

Navy takes over law enforcement after corrupt cops sent packing

(NEWSER) - Mexican authorities have stamped out corruption in the Veracruz police force by stamping out the Veracruz police force. The port city's police department has been disbanded, and all 800 officers and 300 administrative staff have been fired, the BBC reports. The Mexican navy is taking responsibility for law enforcement in the city of 600,000 people. More»

Abdul Razziq keeps order in ways US can't

(NEWSER) - Abdul Razziq is illiterate and corrupt. His network skims custom duties, facilitates drug trafficking, and smuggles contraband across the Pakistani border. Yet the 32-year-old is also essential to the war effort, bringing the kind of security to the city of Spin Boldak that has so eluded the US elsewhere. “If we didn’t have him, we’d be screwed,” one US Army officer tells the Washington Post . “It wouldn’t be this quiet.” More»

Smugglers pay big money for insider help

(NEWSER) - Mexico has a vast, well-known corruption problem, but drug cartels are increasingly finding helping hands across the border in the form of US border agents, finds the Washington Post . In one typical case, an American mother of two, Martha Garnica, worked with smugglers to sneak people and drugs across the border, grooming other agents to do the same. Garnica was busted and sentenced to 20 years. But, says the Post, the cartels pay well and the problem persists. More»

Bling, Twitter, Texas all figure in crisis

(NEWSER) - It may feel as though Mexico's drug war can be summed up in one word: bodies. But there's a lot more to it than meets the eye—or hits the morgue. GlobalPost uncovers five things you may not know:

1. Confiscated bling has its own museum: Cartel-fighting police end up with drug-related loot, which ends up on display at a closed-door museum. Among the "exhibits": high-tech spyware, gold-plated guns and diamond-encrusted pistols. Video tour here .

War against Zetas fueling surge in violence along Rio Grande

(NEWSER) - Three of Mexico's warring drug cartels have agreed to stop shooting each other for as long as it takes to wipe out a fourth, up-and-coming cartel, the BBC reports. Anti-narcotics authorities say that the Sinaloa, La Familia, and Gulf cartels are seeking to exterminate the Zetas, a breakaway group of hitmen from the Gulf cartel seeking their own slice of the cross-border drugs trade. More»