Mexican Cartel Beheads Another Blogger 536
sanzibar writes "The Zetas killed and beheaded an Internet blogger Wednesday in Nuevo Laredo, the fourth slaying in the city involving people associated with social media sites since early September. '"This happened to me for not understanding that I shouldn't report on the social networks," advised a note left before dawn with the man's body at a key intersection in the city's wealthier neighborhood. The victim, identified on social networking sites only by his nickname — Rascatripas or Belly Scratcher — reportedly helped moderate a site called En Vivo that posted news of shootouts and other activities of the Zetas, the narcotics and extortion gang that all but controls the city.'"
If they're going to do this shit anyways (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:If they're going to do this shit anyways (Score:5, Insightful)
Just out of curiosity, what would constitute this revenge?
Certainly outing and naming/shaming gang members is a good start, but perhaps breaking into and emptying certain gang-run bank accounts would be another?
If ever there were opportunities for spear-phishing, this is certainly one of them.
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Just out of curiosity, what would constitute this revenge?
I'm not so certain lulzec or any other group will seek revenge. Most people rant and threaten behind the security of anonymity, if suddenly real world consequences such as beheadings start happening as a result of these rants I think you will find most of the kids will suddenly loose interest, especially if its theirs or that of their l33t friends.
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These criminals wouldn't hesitate to hunt down every last one of them for daring so much as to troll on a web board! What makes you think they'd sit by idle while their bank accounts were emptied. They'd probably start going after not just the bloggers but their family and friends to teach others a lesson. Even cops hesitate to fuck with these guys, and they are already well known, so the idea of shaming them is incredibly stupid and unworkable. What else are these hacker groups do exactly? Release a can of
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Theres a 99% somewhere which doesn't believe the "cops wont beat them thing...." whats the difference now?
Re:If they're going to do this shit anyways (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:If they're going to do this shit anyways (Score:5, Insightful)
> Dealing with those drug lords would require a military.
Or a pen.
"We hereby decriminalize all formerly controlled substances, and return to the Citizens their God-given right to plant, harvest, process, manufacture, buy, sell, snort, inject, swallow and/or smoke whatever narcotic, toxic, psychoactive, carcinogenic, radioactive, caustic, fungal or fecal matter they wish, as long as they limit exposure to willing, opt-in participants only."
And just like that, the Zeta's will be out of business.
Re:If they're going to do this shit anyways (Score:5, Informative)
As a Mexican, I say: THIS. A MILLION TIMES THIS.
However, legalization of drugs in Mexico wouldn't work. The USA would have to legalize at the same time.
Re:If they're going to do this shit anyways (Score:5, Insightful)
However, legalization of drugs in Mexico wouldn't work. The USA would have to legalize at the same time.
If Mexico legalized - not just decriminalized - at least Marijuana, the United States would have to follow suite. With cannabis available **legally** in every shop in every town within 200 miles of the border, the influx of regular normally law abiding Americans getting popped at the border for weed would overwhelm the "justice" system on the American side.
Legalization would happen within two years.
No Jail For Pot [nojailforpot.com]
Re:If they're going to do this shit anyways (Score:5, Interesting)
Pot consumption is decriminalized in BC and you don't see a swarm of retarded Washington idiots flocking across the border or the downfall of society either. Its time to turn off the reality distortion field.
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Pot is legal in Amsterdam and you DO see a swarm of partakers swarming to it.
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So in reality the problem is not Mexico at all, it is the US forcing those drug laws on other countries. It looks very much like that destablisation is done on purpose to prevent those other countries from becoming to competitive. So it looks like to solve the Mexico and the whole of South America drug problem you have to deal with the real trouble makers, the United States government, corrupted by lobbyist bagmen for the various corporation who profit by the continued civil war on drug users.
So far bett
Re:If they're going to do this shit anyways (Score:5, Insightful)
Dream on. If its not pot, it will be other worse drugs. The cartels are not going to go quietly.
Mexico is ruled by gun toting mobs shooting people in the streets. 34,612 people since December 2006.
The only thing that will take down the Mexican Cartels is a full scale military assault, not the
luke warm effort of the Calderon government. Support for the government is waning and public
backing is declining as the violence continues unabated. Given a vote, the Mexican people would
in a few years simply vote to put the cartels in charge of the government just to stop the killings.
Mark my words, The Mexican Government will either have to undertake a full scale war against the
Cartels everywhere, or the US will have to invade and do it for them.
We could legalize every bad-ass drug from central and south american, and it wouldn't make
a dent in the Cartels. If they can't sell illegal drugs they will simply take the farmland and
sell legal ones, and the wives and daughters of the land owners too.
You think you can deal with these guys?
You are crazy.
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We could legalize every bad-ass drug from central and south american, and it wouldn't make
a dent in the Cartels. If they can't sell illegal drugs they will simply take the farmland and
sell legal ones, and the wives and daughters of the land owners too.
You mean, they would turn into corporations? Of course, legal drugs are a very profitable business, but at least they wouldn't be directly killing people, which is not good for legit business.
I find it more likely that they would turn to other illegal activities if all drugs were legalized. Still would be an improvement, at least they would have one less source of income (and a pretty large one).
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Nah, I think they'd melt away. Their power comes from enforcers, their enforcers come from cash, and their cash comes from drugs. Take away the illegal income from drugs, and in six months they'll at best have a quarter of the power they did, assuming they manage to transition to some other source of income at all. Not dissimilar to what happened to the mafia after the end of Prohibition in America.
Re:If they're going to do this shit anyways (Score:5, Insightful)
They will simply expand their other illicit businesses, like extortion and kidnapping.
Re:If they're going to do this shit anyways (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly. Not that we shouldn't legalize drugs anyway to help reduce the black market, but they're not going to go away overnight. If Mexico legalized drugs, it would have zero effect on the cartels, because they make their money by it being illegal in the USA. If they both legalized (fat chance!), they'd turn to other things; they've already got lots of power and money built up already, they're not going to just turn to legitimate businesses.
The only way to deal with the drug cartels is with martial law and military strikes. The cartel people have leaders, and they live somewhere: drop bombs on them. When things get totally out of control like this, it's time to suspend the law and all civil liberties, and go to martial law, send in the troops, and start blowing things up. If Mexico's not willing to do that, then they should simply disband the government and allow the cartels to set up their own government.
Re:If they're going to do this shit anyways (Score:5, Insightful)
It's true that the cartels wouldn't disappear overnight, but they would eventually follow the same path as the mafia. The smart ones would diversify into legitimate businesses and eventually leave most of their more disreputable past behind. The dumb ones would either fail to diversify, or else attempt to apply their violent methods to legitimate business. Either way, they would present a problem that could be more easily handled by law enforcement given that there would be fewer of them, and they would be, by definition, dumber.
This is essentially what happened in post-prohibition America, which is the best model we have for what would happen should drugs be legalized.
Re:If they're going to do this shit anyways (Score:4, Insightful)
So you prefer anarchy and bodies hanging from bridges?
Yes. I don't think those are the only two choices, but yes. I'm none too fond of excuses to take away civil liberties. Whether that be "terrorists" or "drug cartels," they're all the same to me.
Re:If they're going to do this shit anyways (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:If they're going to do this shit anyways (Score:5, Insightful)
Where are they going to get their money? Not all crime pays enough to fund organized crime on that scale. There are a couple other places they could turn, prostitution and sex trafficking, gambling, things like that. But the amount of money in those things does not come close. And you could take the bottom out of them by legalizing them too. . .so, where's the beef? How are these thugs going to pay to keep the lights on?
Other forms of crime like kidnapping and robbery don't pay enough to support a large orginization, and can be done by much smaller groups. Crime for crimes sake is fun, but these people still need to eat and get by and provide for their families, and if the syndicate can't pay the bills they're going to need to get another job. And that will throw a wrench into a crime syndicate's ability to operate.
You can't just wave your hands and say, they won't stop. They need money to operate like any business.
Re:If they're going to do this shit anyways (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:If they're going to do this shit anyways (Score:5, Insightful)
No, they didn't. They eventually integrated into a hybrid of legitimate business and white collar crime, for the most part. That is, until Prohibition II made it profitable to be extraordinarily violent again.
Re:If they're going to do this shit anyways (Score:5, Informative)
The news was real big on reporting the story that "Anonymous has backed down on their threat against the Zetas". But what half the news stories -- maybe more -- did not say was that they only backed down AFTER their member was released.
Re:If they're going to do this shit anyways (Score:5, Informative)
The news was real big on reporting the story that "Anonymous has backed down on their threat against the Zetas". But what half the news stories -- maybe more -- did not say was that they only backed down AFTER their member was released.
Emphasis yours
Very interesting indeed.
Care to cite your source?
Re:If they're going to do this shit anyways (Score:5, Informative)
Re:If they're going to do this shit anyways (Score:5, Interesting)
Thank you. The media has spun this story to appear as though Anonymous backed down out of fear. I wonder why that is.
Because groups like Anon who are good at obtaining information and causing grief for major corporations tend to piss off powerful people. Powerful people tend to be well-represented in the media.
What, did you think the news was somehow objective? The media are populated by fascists, other statists, and those heavily invested in the status quo. They're just careful not to tell an outright lie that is easily falsified. Mostly they spin and they deliberately omit details that don't serve their agenda. Their priorities are roughly as follows:
1. Promote government control and the increasing centralization of both power and wealth, either by fearmongering (gotta stop those terrorists and protect the children!) or by appealing to the nanny-state (because someone might hurt themselves and it's for your own good after all).
2. De-emphasize individuality and personal responsibility. Anyone featured in the news must be identified according to the group identity -- if someone is black or a woman or any other minority group, a big deal must be made of this (a total rejection of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s notion of going by the content of character). Everyone who ever suffers in any way is always a victim -- there are no adults who suffer because they make poor decisions. Anyone who successfully stands up for himself must be ignored or downplayed, which is why a citizen with a conceal-carry permit who uses his gun to stop a crime will be described as "the perpetrator was subdued until police arrived" but any psychopath who goes on a shooting spree with a semi-automatic glorified deer rifle will be described as "a GUNman with an ASSAULT RIFLE" (nevermind that an assault rifle has features such as a select-fire switch not present on the firearm in question and they know this term is wrong and does not apply).
3. Dumb everything down and promote childishness and emotional immaturity among adult people. Use words like "lawmaker" because "legislator" might confuse someone, et al. Write and speak at about a 6th-grade reading level. Cater to small-minded gossips by watching every move every actor, singler, dancer, or athlete makes in their personal lives and covering it at length as though it were important. Make a big deal out of every marital problem a celebrity has, every trivial lifestyle decision they make, every unqualified opinion they have as though a thinking person would ever care about such idiotic and insignificant trivia. Then promote this as normal without ever questioning its validity.
4. Never, ever, ever offend a corporate sponsor or release any story that might possibly make them look bad, no matter how important or relevant such a story might be (cf Fox News and BGH milk).
5. Pretend like the linear, one-dimensional thinking that is "Left vs. Right" represents every possibility of human thought that ever has occurred, is occurring, or ever could occur in the future. Pretend also that the two major parties have any significant differences that could radically alter the course of the nation if implemented. Anytime a political figure takes an official position, just parrot what they say instead of applying critical thought to whether it holds water and really makes any sense.
6. If the above criteria are met, cherry-pick events that happen and report on them as long as no significant change could ever occur from these events becoming widely known. Or report them so long as the event is too big or too embarassing to be ignored and then perform the role of damage control by spinning and downplaying anything not favorable to the status quo. Or throw one person under the bus and crucify them for what is actually a systemic or institutional problem of which they happened to be an easy example.
7. Flash something different on the screen every 10-15 seconds or so to a
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Re:If they're going to do this shit anyways (Score:5, Interesting)
Anon couldn't even take down Facebook when they promised to. Paper tigers.
They should hire a social media consultant with th (Score:5, Informative)
Re:They should hire a social media consultant with (Score:5, Insightful)
They don't need to... no need to rule the world, happy to be king in 'their' corner of it.
corner ? (Score:4, Insightful)
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anon/lulzsec member in china or russia can harm them. what will mexican drug cartels do ? send a mexican to xiyghuan province, to behead the hacker ?
Yeah, right. Somehow it's hard to see how these "anon/lulzsec" script kiddies are going to harm the Zetas.
Re:corner ? (Score:5, Interesting)
anon/lulzsec member in china or russia can harm them. what will mexican drug cartels do ? send a mexican to xiyghuan province, to behead the hacker ?
Not at all. They will pay the Triads or Russian Mafia to take care of the person for them. Assassinations are a source of revenue too. The better question is do the Mexican drug cartels care enough to pay the going rate?
Re:corner ? (Score:4, Insightful)
Money is money. Hiring outside of your organization to kill somebody that is not even on your turf is not unheard of. The Russian gangs don't give two shits about what is going on in Mexico, and there are always shills.
Money speaks louder than any allegiances or rivalries.
Re:corner ? (Score:5, Funny)
Really now, is there NO profession safe from offshoring these day?
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Recently there was a plot by Iranians to kill the ambassador of Saudi Arabia, [go.com] and they hired a Mexican gangster to do it. Iran claims it was a dissident group that did it, but.....
There is plenty of evidence of opposing groups helping each other out. The 2001 Indian Parliament Attack used weapons smuggled by a famous Indian smuggler, despite it being a Pakistani plot. During the Bosnia-Kosovo fighting in the late 90s, there was cooperation on both sides of the war to smuggle cigarettes (they are highly taxe
False. (Score:3, Informative)
No, Bush claimed that Iraq was trying to get yellow cake uranium from Africa. Interestingly enough, after the invasion it was discovered that Iraq had a small supply of yellow cake uranium.
False.
http://www.snopes.com/politics/war/yellowcake.asp [snopes.com]
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Re:This ain't hollywood.... (Score:5, Interesting)
If assassins had a union, the union would terminate any member who chills business by snuffing out any prospective customer who shows up, unless everyone is pretty sure you kept your solicitation close to the vest.
I suppose it's like the priest who hits a hole in one on the golf course when he should have been preaching: Who can he tell? When you run with a crowd where you can reveal your murderous solicitations as insurance against the instant double-cross, we call it organized crime.
In any case, with this kind of intimidation, there's often a tipping point where there's too much to suppress and too much risk in doing so. When the heads pile up to the sky, it becomes a political issue.
On a podcast the other night, I heard that stern discipline of children promotes frequency and skill at lying. Some parents care enough to give their children a big headstart on a lucrative career path.
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Ask Parejo Gonzalez about it. He thought he was safe behind the Iron Curtain in Hungary.
http://www.nytimes.com/1987/01/18/weekinreview/the-world-ambassador-shot-by-cocaine-ring.html [nytimes.com]
Re:They should hire a social media consultant with (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't think they care all that much about bloggers who aren't in the local area watching them.
OTOH, maybe a means of helping those bloggers who are left down there set up VPN tunnels and encryption, so that anonymous broadcasts of gang activities can get out to the public Internet and be broadcast anyway to all interested parties. That way the reporting is perfectly anonymous, but the targets of that reporting are not.
Re:They should hire a social media consultant with (Score:5, Insightful)
"On another note, the intelligence company known as Stratfor mentioned that if Anonymous sticks to its promise and actually publishes the names of those involved, it will "most certainly" lead to more deaths and could leave bloggers and others open to reprisal attacks by the cartel.[54] Mike Vigil, the retired head of the Drug Enforcement Administration, mentioned that "Los Zetas should take Anonymous seriously."[55] Moreover, Stratfor mentioned that Los Zetas also has experts in computer intelligence who are believed to track down the "anti-cartel" campaigns online,[56] which has made experts understand the high rate of journalist executions.[57] In addition, they mentioned that the Mexican drug cartels generally have people monitor forums, news websites, and blogs to help them be in touch with what is being published and with what could affect their interests.[58]"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Zetas_Cartel [wikipedia.org]
Being a group comprised of Mexican Special Forces, politicians, judges, police, etc. with untold millions at their disposal, with no fear of leaving mass graves of hundreds of people (decapitated, tortured, etc), it seems that compromising a few ISP's or killing any outlet of information would not be difficult if they chose to focus on it. Nationally or internationally.
Legalize drugs, and let their income of blood money vanish.
And go watch Cocaine Cowboys 1 and 2. If we can't even keep drugs out of prisons, what the hell is the point?
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Legalize drugs, and let their income of blood money vanish.
If you think legalizing drugs will stop their reign of terror, you've got another thing coming. They'll just find some other extremely lucrative (and therefore most likely illegal) market to attempt to corner, and their thuggery will continue.
Re:They should hire a social media consultant with (Score:4, Informative)
Legalize drugs, and let their income of blood money vanish.
If you think legalizing drugs will stop their reign of terror, you've got another thing coming. They'll just find some other extremely lucrative (and therefore most likely illegal) market to attempt to corner, and their thuggery will continue.
There is no other market of the same scale available to them. Legalizing drugs will cut off the money supply, and within a few years they'll shrink to a tiny fraction of their current size.
Re:They should hire a social media consultant with (Score:5, Insightful)
Legalize drugs, and let their income of blood money vanish.
If you think legalizing drugs will stop their reign of terror, you've got another thing coming. They'll just find some other extremely lucrative (and therefore most likely illegal) market to attempt to corner, and their thuggery will continue.
Such as?
What "extremely lucrative" market is there, which Zetas can reasonably adjust itself to supply?
Here's a hint, whatever that market is, it isn't in Mexico. Not enough per capita income. The only market that could possibly bankroll an organization like Zetas is America... and what product or service other than narcotics is there such a passionate, unmet demand for in America?
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Re:They should hire a social media consultant with (Score:5, Insightful)
What I don't understand is why these bloggers aren't using the tools available to them to remain anonymous.
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Why be anon when you can be "cool" ?
Of course its why most people do anything, money, power, revenge...
Now, if Mr. Wikileaks guy had never let his name be known, he too may of escapped and never got in so much trouble ;)
)Its late and i've forgot his name, but people LOVE the fame).
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When the cartel controls the city, it can always control the infrastructure... how do you know these guys aren't being monitored? I'm sure the people with internet in their homes isn't so vast that they couldn't so a process of elimination and then spying on some people to get some corroboration. It's awful what they are doing and I hope some internet white knights come and kick their ass, but in reality, these guys are controlling the real world for that city .. they don't need to control the internet.
Re:They should hire a social media consultant with (Score:4, Insightful)
Probably because they're not IT workers/CS majors (Score:3)
Subject says it all. Even among CS grads, I'd bet that only small minority have ever heard of Tor. What's worse is that a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing--I'd hate to go to Nuevo Laredo Online and spam it with links to Tor [torproject.org], only to have someone download it and get beheaded because they used it incorrectly. So, there needs to be a push to educate the bloggers about the basics, benefits, and pitfalls of anonymizing tools. This means that we nerds actually have the power to help Mexicans defeat t
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Also, for all you Spanish-speaking geeks reading this, help now by translating Tor documentation. [torproject.org]
Re:They should hire a social media consultant with (Score:5, Interesting)
They don't need to, what they want is to keep control of the street, something that they manage to do by terror. They don't want to have secure communications, they want to leave people isolated. For example they cut the fibers of the phone exchange in the small town of my wife's grandparents. People was without phone service for 3 weeks, the phone company crew was unable to restore service until a Army's detachment went to the town and guarded them.
Re:They should hire a social media consultant with (Score:4, Insightful)
I think you're missing the real point. These aren't random bloggers on the Internet, the sort that would say "oh wow, those Mexican criminals are bad," these are people who are local to the region, commenting on facts...in effect, acting as journalists. Reporters have already been murdered and threatened; it just follows that bloggers would get the same treatment.
And if you think that "the complexity of the Internet" is much help, let me break down this situation to you:
Bloggers: "Dear Mexican crime syndicates: we will tell other people what you are doing, that you are killing, kidnapping, extorting and selling drugs."
Mexican crime syndicates: "Dear bloggers: we will torture you to death, and then dump your body in a public place as a message."
That doesn't seem like a very symmetric exchange to me.
Re:They should hire a social media consultant with (Score:5, Insightful)
This is not true.
Although violence happens everywhere (including Mexico City, 2 beheaded men were found last week a few minutes down the road from my home in Mexico City) it is not generalized.
Mexico City is certainly better than most, relatives of mine that live in Queretaro and Guadalajara report that these places remain peaceful to the point that some important companies are moving their local HQs there (Mexico City is getting just too crowded), the Yucatan peninsula (where Cancun is) is also quite peaceful (I have been there several times in the last 5 years and remains as enjoyable as ever).
Most of the violence is, surprise, surprise, in the border zone and has spilled mostly to Northern states and important coastal ones (Veracruz, Guerrero, Sinaloa) which are important routes of the drugs being trafficked to the US.
Mexico just organized the Soccer U-17 world cup and the Panamerican Games, amongst many other events, we have a working democracy (certainly threatened by the drug dealing business) and a vibrant cultural scene. To compare Mexico with Somalia just comes to show that some people really need to travel and read a bit more.
Legalize Drugs (Score:5, Insightful)
Legalize and regulate drugs. Put the cartels out of business.
Re:Legalize Drugs (Score:5, Insightful)
It would reduce a major form of funding, but there will still be a market in human trafficking and other activities. It will help, but it won't put them out of business.
Re:Legalize Drugs (Score:5, Insightful)
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I get the feeling that corrupt organizations (and, lets face it, if your organization requires the death of a blogger for reporting on your activities, it is corrupt) won't be particularly eager to legitimize themselves. There's more to organized crime than drugs, and I think they're likely resourceful enough to move onto the next lucrative illegal activity in the absence of an illicit drug trade.
Re:Legalize Drugs (Score:5, Insightful)
If you eliminate 80% of their funding, they can only be 20% bad -- not enough revenue for as many machine guns, not revenue for as many grenades, not enough revenue to pay off all the cops, not enough revenue to pay all the "troops". This last one could be especially juicy because they'd have a little internal power struggle to keep what is left and hopefully would go nuts offing each other.
Cut out most of the money, and they'll shrink drastically. Once they get down to a certain size, they'll be easier to deal with. Suggesting that cutting off their funds would have no effect though, is nuts.
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Re:Legalize Drugs (Score:5, Insightful)
It's too late, the cartels are already exploring other business ventures, such as collecting a 50% "income tax" [neglectedwar.com]. Legalizing drugs will not help deal with them at that point, they need to actually be physically exterminated.
It's late, but not too late. (Score:3)
Reducing their income means that they have less money.
And money is the reason that they're taking money from the people in the areas they control.
The problem is that bullets are cheap. It's going to be a long, bloody war no matter what happens. But reducing their income means that it will be shorter and less bloody.
Mexico is falling into warlordism.
The central government is ineffective / complicit.
Legalizing drugs would move the money FROM the cartels TO the legal growers AND the government (taxes).
There's
I can live with petty crime. (Score:4, Insightful)
As long as crime pays, there will be people who try to cash in on it.
Some of those people will form groups to facilitate their crimes.
Nothing will ever end "organized crime". But that doesn't matter as long as it is weaker than the central government. So that should be the first goal.
Then, clean up the central government.
Anything that is illegal will generate revenue for organized crime.
Legalize it.
Localize it (grown in the USofA by Unionized farmers)
Regulate it
Tax it
Take the tax revenue and fund free recovery clinics and anti-drug drives.
There are LOTS of people out there who can use "recreational" drugs without negatively impacting society (aside from the money going to the cartels who KILL PEOPLE). The same as most of the people who buy alcohol don't go out and smash their cars into other cars.
Tax the product so that the percentage of people who CAN use it responsibly pay for the treatment of those who CANNOT.
Do you need me to answer that? (Score:5, Informative)
Do you really need me to answer that?
It was available for legal purchase OVER THE COUNTER until 1914. And yet our country survived those terrible, terrible cocaine fueled years.
How would that work? (Score:3)
How would that work? Bullets are small and cheap.
It might "have a much more significant impact" but it is impossible to achieve.
But moving the revenue stream from the cartels to a legitimate government is easier to accomplish. The same as was done with Prohibition here.
Also with regards to guns and bullets (Score:5, Informative)
First it is extremely stupid to think that the US is the one and only source, or even the primary source, for weapons. Even if the US was able to implement a 100% effective ban, they'd have no trouble getting guns because they are made all over the place. The most notable example would be the ever popular AK-47. It is principally built by Izhmash which as the name implies is not a US firm, it is Russian, since that is the origination of the weapon. However other companies build knockoffs either under license or not. There are around 100 million in existence.
You think the Russians, with their massive levels of corruption, will stop selling to Mexican gangs?
That aside, many weapons come from other places, including places like Europe. Take what are probably the top two most popular brands of handguns with law enforcement: Glock and Sig Sauer. Neither are US brands. Glock is Austrian, Sig is German, but owned by Swiss Arms. Yet they supply most of US law enforcement, local state and federal, with their sidearms. Some other examples would be Heckler and Koch (German), FN Herstal (Belgian), IMI (Isralei), Tauras (Brazilian), Benelli (Italian), and so on. None of these are me stretching for names either, these are all gun makers you can easily find in gun shops, and the companies that make things like military hardware.
Bullets, well shit those are so easy not only can you make them yourself, people DO. Handloading is a popular activity in the US. Partially it can help you save money if you shoot a lot, but also some people just find it fun and like to make the ammo they shoot. Regardless, it isn't something you need a machine shop for (as you do to produce a quality firearm), it is something that is easily done by individuals with only a small amount of equipment.
I think some people have the misconception that the US is the source of all the guns in the world. Not at all true. The US does have a bunch of firearm manufacturers, but then so does the rest of the world. The US could shut down all domestic weapons production and there'd still be plenty made and sold.
Re:Legalize Drugs (Score:5, Insightful)
Right because organized crime died out in the US after prohibition.
Prohibition didn't end drug use, gambling, prostitution, or illegal immigration.
In the US the reason why the mob declined rapidly after prohibition ended had more to do with virtually all of the money in organized crime drying up. Not just most of the money, the American gangs also didn't have quite the grip on the US that the cartels in Mexico currently have.
And guess what happens to the Mexican cartels when they too lose most of their money. They don't have any stronger a grip on Mexican cities than the Mob did on New York City or Chicago.
People keep suggesting legalization but it's little more than rationalization of bad behavior. Preventing guns and munitions from flowing to Mexico would have a much more significant impact.
Why is drug use "bad behavior"? And it's far more possible to do than prevent guns and munition from flowing to Mexico or being made in Mexico. Might as well prevent all crime while you're at it.
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They didn't switch to drugs until Prohibition II. While they still remained somewhat violent, it was nowhere near on the scale of the alcohol wars. When you go underground with white collar crime, the necessity for violence to protect your interests falls off dramatically.
That's the thing I don't get about people who say, essentially, that Prohibition didn't eliminate organized crime, so why end Prohibition II? It's not going to end organized crime, but it will end a lot of violence associated with the drug
then goldman sachs would take over (Score:2)
it would be worse than ever. they would be finding 'scientific research' that proved cocaine was good for you, and then make money investing in for-profit addiction treatment clinics, selling 'addiction recovery bonds' to investors, etc etc etc.
thats basically what they have done with fat and sugar... make delivery as efficient as possible and profit from the problems it causes (obesity etc).
not that im all against it. but it should heavily regulated.
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What gives you the idea that destroying the traffickers' market is "favoring" them? Keep in mind that legitimate business will quickly eat these cartels alive.
Seriously? So when crack is legalized, you're going to just walk down the street and tell the crack dealers on the corner, "Sorry, fellas! Looks like me and my legitimate business will be taking over from here on out!" Then you'll smile, wave, and walk back to your office to plan your new crack business?
You don't seem to understand that the actual moving of drugs from place to place is the least of the crime worries in Mexico right now.
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Pretty much. Keep in mind that legal sellers will have a much lower price and the police to back them up.
Seriously. Seriously? My mind boggles. You're talking about an industry that doesn't think twice about murdering police and leaving their heads on sticks to teach a lesson, and you're saying that the people who compete with the current industry leaders are going to just... take their business? Like it was handed to them? "Hi yes, we are the government of Mexico, and as of now I grant you the right to eliminate the drug cartels. Go forth... and profit!!"
Possibly not (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Possibly not (Score:5, Insightful)
Wired updated their story [wired.com] with an important caveat
Which raises a very important and much lower-tech question: why would cartels be deterred by technical obstacles keeping them from identifying the real bloggers? Grab some random techy-looking guy off the street and kill him, and pin a note to him claiming he's a blogger with a warning to others not to report on cartel activities, and who'll know the difference locally? (And even if the actual bloggers are so thoroughly anonymized as to be undetectable .. that's got to make anyone on the street nervous about whether or not they're really anonymous..)
..
Because there's more to real life than tech [xkcd.com]
ISP has to be giving them up (Score:4, Interesting)
How else could they track them if their ISP wasn't cooperating?
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Streisand effect, with a vengeance (Score:4, Interesting)
Now I'm not saying that anonymous internet nerds are going to be a threat to these guys. But, the more news reporting there is of how completely evil they are, the more outraged people get at their behavior, the more likely it becomes that either the Mexican or American authorities take them more seriously and launch an all-out war against them. If/When that happens, they'll wish they had learned the lessons of the Mafia: stay hidden, stay quiet, and don't call any attention to yourself.
Re:Streisand effect, with a vengeance (Score:5, Insightful)
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uhmm... they are the mexican authorities (Score:4, Informative)
the drug cartels have infiltrated the local police, the federal police, the media, and the politicians. the mexican authorities arent going to 'launch war' against their own agents.
as for the US authorities... i just... they are utterly incompetent. you have to realize the guys we are supporting in afghanistan "against the taliban" are drug lords (the taliban are also drug lords).
we are basically propping up the same guys we want to kill in mexico, its called 'realpolitik'. in other words, nobody cares if a bunch of bloggers get beheaded as long as the 'larger US strategic interests' are protected.
for Mexico, that means cheap labor in mequilladoras (for products we can ship) and cheap immigrant labor (for labor that has to be done on site).
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But, the more news reporting there is of how completely evil they are, the more outraged people get at their behavior, the more likely it becomes that either the Mexican or American authorities take them more seriously and launch an all-out war against them.
They have had an all-out war for three years now [wikipedia.org] - and by "war" I don't mean the kind of war that's "war on drugs" in U.S., I mean actual war with military personnel, fully equipped, directly involved in operations - and cartels using IEDs, machine guns, grenade launchers, mortars, and improvised but still impressive armored vehicles [washingtonpost.com].
So far it doesn't seem to be working all that well, because, in those southern states, cartels are often more powerful than the government, and their manpower is, to a large ex
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But that hardware isn't to fight the government. Like any good criminal organization they're not interested in fighting battles against an army. When the army shows up they hide their guns and act like normal people.
The hardware is for the other gangs.
Why did they kill him? (Score:3)
Maybe it's obvious, but I'm clueless. Why did they not want him to report on "shootouts and other activities"? I would have guessed they rather wanted their brutal behaviour to be known. What activities was it they did not want reported on?
No one will report any of this in Mexico (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:No one will report any of this in Mexico (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:No one will report any of this in Mexico (Score:5, Insightful)
Dramatic Effect (Score:4, Insightful)
Hurry Up And Collapse Already (Score:3)
Mexico is basically in a state of quiet civil war at this point: the government vs. the gangs. I read somewhere that the US is moving more men to the southern border, and expects a collapse of the Mexican government in 5 years time (unfortunately, I can't find the article again, so maybe it was incorrect).
In any case, while I completely agree that legalization of drugs in both the US and Mexico would solve this (in the short term; who knows what the gangs would move on to), the real answer is for Mexico to just hurry up and collapse into total civil war. That way the whole world can acknowledge the crises, and help re-build the country from the slum that it currently is.
As for me, I refuse to travel there, and I tell everyone I can to do the same. I realize lack of tourism dollars may hurt non-gang industries, but quite frankly I don't care. I know that if I go there, at least some portion, if not a large portion. of any money I spend will end up in the gangs hands, and I'm not willing to give them anymore than they have already. I suggest everyone does the same, and let the country collapse.
The country is not colapsing (Score:5, Interesting)
This is an utter lie.
The real economy in Mexico keeps moving and the immense majority of the population does not experience any violence at all, politics proceeds as usual, and even today's tragedy of losing the Government Minister to an accident (and the Education Minister having been diagnosed with cancer) won't bring things to a standstill, other people people will be named, and the business of government will continue as usual.
Of course the environment is tense and the situation is unacceptable and horrific, but Mexico is a big country and most of it leads a normal life.
I am not trying to minimize the situation: it is pretty bad, but it is a bad situation happening in a civilized country which is fighting back (scores of policemen are being fired if corruption is found, the army is on the streets since its command structures and loyalty are more reliable than the police's).
It is also noticeable that foreign governments, international organizations (G20 for example) and sports bodies (FIFA for example) see Mexico as a safe enough place to make business with.
Cultural Differences... (Score:5, Insightful)
Many of the people reading and commenting here are Americans, so you might be missing something rather important.
These bloggers were careful. They probably used every type of encryption, all kinds of VPNs, proxies and tons of security software. But the one thing you cannot avoid in almost every nation other than the US and most of Europe, is the non-virtual social network, where everyone knows everyone else.
Here in America and most of Europe, humans can communicate without ever seeing each other. We build so-called "social networks", but in reality we've never met nearly 50% of the people we associate with online. In places like South America, where the Internet is not quite as prevalent, people still talk to each other. Families still sit down to dinner, share meals with neighbors, chat over the fence, gossip here and there, all face to face.
So when you talk to someone about a gang member, they remember you. Perhaps they mention it to a friend, and a neighbor overhears. However it happens, if more than one person knows that someone talked about something, it *will* get to the other interested party eventually. And if that other interested party is extremely powerful, with a reputation for slaughtering anyone who hides info, and richly rewarding those who supply it?
You can't even hide in your parent's basement, because all the neighbors will know you're down there, and will gossip about how you never come out except to ask strange questions.
Here in the US, in our connected-yet-disconnected society, anonymity comes from a mixture of software and our physical isolation. In places like Mexico, where physical isolation is akin to Excommunication, anonymity in such a profession is all but impossible.
Rascatripas != belly scratcher. (Score:5, Informative)
rasca = to scratch tripas = guts. rascatripas = gutscratcher. which is Mexican slang for guitar player.
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"... and in other news, the virtual body of Slashdot poster msuave was found today behind a virtual dumpster and is missing his virtual head. Msuave was quoted as saying, "I'll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today" and it was later discovered that he could not come up with the four hamburger repayment schedule, but only had three burgers on him.
McDonald's has declined to comment."
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And after you've trained and equipped a force that is meaner and more capable than the Zetas, and they've run the Zetas out of town, what do you suppose they'll do next?
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You don't get to sell drugs for long without a total understanding of your local and international telco networks.
You need to know who is calling from within your group, so you NSA it up and sort everything.
If a $1.5 million IBM AS400 mainframe was used before 2000, what do you think can be done many years later?
http://cocaine.org/cokecrime/ [cocaine.org]
So expect that kind of skill at a local level around