Mexico: Army Raid Finds Cash Addressed to Police
September 23rd, 2009Via: AP:
Soldiers raiding a drug gang safehouse in northern Mexico found money-stuffed envelopes earmarked for various police forces and one marked for “press,” authorities said Tuesday.
Four people were arrested and $5 million in U.S. and Mexican currency was seized during the raid Monday in the industrial city of Monterrey, according to an army statement. Soldiers, acting on an anonymous tip, also seized drugs, money counting machines, cell phones and five vehicles.
Monterrey and the surrounding state of Nuevo Leon, which borders Texas, have been a focus of the federal government’s crackdown on police corruption.
The cash and seized items were displayed at military barracks north of the city, with dozens of white envelopes containing some of the cash arranged in rows on a table.
Envelopes at the front of the rows had yellow post-it notes with the names of police precincts in Monterrey and other municipal forces in Nuevo Leon state. One was labeled “press.”
Army officials refused to say more about what the money was intended for, declining to comment beyond the statement.
In June, nearly 80 police officers suspected of working with drug smugglers were arrested in 18 towns across Nuevo Leon after soldiers found lists of police names in the possession of traffickers.
Since then, Monterrey police have been banned from sitting in parked cars or using cell phones while on duty because of concerns they may be acting as lookouts for gangs. Police in Mexico’s third-largest city have also been prohibited from setting up sobriety checkpoints because they allegedly used them to extort motorists.
The resort city of Cancun, meanwhile, fired 30 police officers in an effort to clean up the image of another force long plagued by corruption. Cancun Mayor Gregorio Sanchez said the city government “had lost confidence” in the work of the officers and some of them may have been working for criminal gangs.
The purge came a week after eight former top police and prosecution officials in Quintana Roo state, where Cancun is located, were ordered to stand trial on charges of aiding drug cartels.
Earlier this year, the Cancun police chief was arrested on suspicion of involvement in the assassination of an army brigadier general hired to root out corruption in the city.
President Felipe Calderon has acknowledged that corruption permeates Mexican police at all levels. He has relied on the army to fight ruthless drug cartels, deploying tens of thousands of soldiers across the country since taking office in late 2006. Gang violence has since surged, claiming more than 13,500 lives.
I just love how these mainstream press stories are written, always taking utterly for granted that the central government and the military are corruption-free. If they admit that Calderon and his killing machine are complicit, it’s only a short mental step to the larger analogy rising into the realm of “awareness” when it comes to the home team.
And then there’s the carefully-managed inability to recognize an equals sign. If diplomacy can be described as “war by other means”, then it stands to reason that war is also “diplomacy by other means”, no?
It’s a truly detached feeling, not being able to trust a single item you read in the press, but at the same time it is quite liberating. To my mind, what’s genuinely unfortunate is how many millions will never be able to think their way out of the intellectual equivalent of a wet paper sack.
The best “reporting” I’ve read thus far from the region comes from a pseudonymical author out of Monterrey — a native if he’s to be believed — published under the moniker “Pancho Montana” over at the Exiled, where Mark Ames & Yasha Levine operate their roughshod “fringe” version of gonzo journalism for the 21st Century.
Not that I trust them any farther than I can throw them either, with their drum-beating for healthcare reform and so on. Perhaps it’s an honest desire to improve lives, but I suspect there’s a bit more to their “seek and destroy” style — and Ames’ rising media star only adds to the suspicion.
Yet another deep-cover Company man in the media receiving a meritorious promotion, perhaps?
Meanwhile, they’re worth keeping an eye on just for John Dolan… I mean Gary Brecher’s infrequent “War Nerd” columns, which are surely a bit harsh for most mainstream readers. However, his grasp of tactics and honest accounting of historical elements are peerless. I read each and every one without a single pang of guilt or shame.