AGUASCALIENTES, Mexico -- Just before noon on February 15, 2007, four municipal police officers in Aguascalientes, the picturesque capital of the central Mexican state bearing the same name, were called to a mundane road accident. An overturned, black Chevy Suburban with out-of-state license Replica IPHONE plates was blocking traffic on the quiet Boulevard John Paul Il that runs through the city's sleepy western suburbs.
When local police commander Juan Jose Navarro Rincon and his three colleagues arrived, they saw two men who did not appear to be hurt, removing AK-47 assault rifles and police uniforms from the crashed vehicle to a white Nissan sport utility vehicle (SUV) parked nearby. Navarro Rincon called for reinforcements. He was about to arrest the pair when two other cars came to an abrupt stop just up the road. Three gunmen climbed out and opened fire with automatic weapons. Navarro Rincon was killed instantly. Three other officers also died.
The killings, dubbed "Black Thursday" by the local press, were the first shootings of police officers in Aguascalientes by drug gangs. Until then, Aguascalientes had been a quiet place, immune to the violence that was raging in cities along the U.S.-Mexico border and elsewhere in the country. The firefight sparked a manhunt throughout the state's rocky plateaus, involving some five dozen federal police patrol cars and a military helicopter. Later that day, with the gunmen and the drivers of the escape vehicles captured and in police custody, Aguascalientes State Attorney Xavier Gonzalez Fisher tried to reassure the rattled public. He told the media that the burst of violence was an isolated incident. "Aguascalientes is quiet, is at peace ... this does not happen every day." For a long time, his words might have served as an accurate description of the state of affairs in Aguascalientes. But the incident was a telltale mark that the bloody, corrosive nexus of drugs, crime, and corruption growing malignantly along the Mexico-U.S, border has metastasized to regions previously immune to this cancer.
Moving Northward
In some respects, the Mexican problem is the result of Colombia's successful war on the Cali and Medellin drug cartels in the 1990s. Pablo Escobar Gaviria, the notorious leader of the Medellin Cartel, was gunned down by police commandos in 1993. Brothers Gilberto and Miguel Rodriguez Orejuela, who formed and ran the Cali Cartel, were captured in 1995, and later extradited to the United States to serve 30-year prison sentences. Although the Cali and Medellin cartels continued to operate, the removal of their leaders weakened them and created an opening for Mexican organized crime groups, such as the Guadalajara Cartel led by Miguel "El Pardino" ("the Godfather") Angel Felix Gallardo and his successors, to seize control of the lucrative North American drug trade.
The Guadalajara Cartel and similar groups had traditionally moved the Colombian drugs north. Felix Gallardo cultivated friendships with politicians, businessmen, and journalists, as well as with other drug lords. Distributing power and spoils, he built a nationwide trafficking network whose members rarely resorted to violence. Under Felix Gallardo's system, territories were carved out for local chieftains, and whenever another group needed access to his region, a tribute was paid. Though he was captured by the Mexican government in 1989, Felix Gallardo remained in charge, orchestrating meetings and dividing covers online territory from prison. It was ultimately a failing effort. With the Guadalajara Cartel's ring-leader locked up and the Colombians under attack, others started developin
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