Mexico Nabs 3rd Brother in Reputed Drug Family

By on January 3, 2010 in News 6

From Yahoo News:

The capture of a reputed kingpin following the death of his brother has knocked out most of a brutal drug trafficking dynasty after a Mexican crackdown on corruption stripped the Beltran Leyva cartel of many snitches within security forces.Carlos Beltran Leyva was arrested in the Pacific coast state Sinaloa, where he and several of his brothers were born and allegedly started their gang. A judge ordered him held for at least 40 days while officials investigate possible charges of organized crime, the Attorney General’s Office said in a statement Sunday.

His capture came just two weeks after his brother Arturo, known as “the boss of bosses” of the cartel, was killed in a shootout with marines at a luxury apartment in the city of Cuernavaca.

Carlos Beltran‘s arrest gave Calderon back-to-back victories in the drug war and underscored the government’s determination to destroy the cartel despite the threat of reprisal attacks. Days after Arturo Beltran was killed, gunmen massacred the mother and three other relatives of the only marine who died in the Dec. 16 shootout in Cuernavaca.

[Read more at Yahoo News]

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  • markus

    And then there will be hundreds more and eager to follow in his foot steps.
    Essentially, my reaction to this is: meh!

    Just go and legalize pot and most of the problem will go away by itself.

    • Russ

      Markus, I mostly agree. There are lots of eager replacements. Killing criminal leadership doesn't diminish crime, it just results in bloody power struggles. Marijuana needs to be legalized.

      But what about crystal meth, cocaine, and heroine? Should oxycodon be made available without a prescription? If pot is legalized, but these others aren't, the problem of violent organized crime won't go away. They'll just change markets.

      • markus

        Thanks, Russ.
        No, crystal meth, heroine and cocaine need to disappear. The quicker, the better.
        By legalizing Marijuana, the userbase for the other drugs would be cut down tremendously.
        You will never be able to get rid of all the hard drugs, but if Pot is easy to come by legally, I would assume that most users would be happy with just smoking and not hitting up harder drugs.
        Also, legalizing pot would prevent kids on getting hooked on other drugs due to the control effect.
        Legal pot wouldn't be tainted with coke, or crack and whatever else they sprinkle it with these days.

        So, essentially, I agree that we need to fight the harder drugs, and keep a lid on prescriptions, but legalizing pot would ease the situation quite a bit.

      • CitizenJape

        Truthfully, marijuana is the cash crop of the illegal drug trade. The money that is generated from marijuana sales enables traffickers to move harder drugs into their markets. If the profits from the sale of this PLANT were suddenly stolen it would be much more difficult to move other drugs.

  • Anonymous

    Legalize pot so we can have a friendlier face on weed sales.So some corporate monopoly can sell it instead.

    Better to grow your own as people will do if its legal. It will be harder to make money commercially if its legal.
    Too easy to grow, anyone can do it. Pot will become “normal” like cigarettes and booze. Wierd. Cool…

  • GoodDoktorBad

    Legalize pot so we can have a friendlier face on weed sales.So some corporate monopoly can sell it instead.

    Better to grow your own as people will do if its legal. It will be harder to make money commercially if its legal.
    Too easy to grow, anyone can do it. Pot will become “normal” like cigarettes and booze. Wierd. Cool…