How Mexico's Drug Cartels Are Adapting

The violence between Mexico's government and its army and the well-financed and well-armed drug cartels is shocking. Since 2007, 45,000 troops have battled drug gangs "armed with rocket-launchers, grenades, machineguns and armour-piercing sniper rifles, such as the Barrett 50."

Since then over 10,000 people have died, 6,268 in 2008 alone. It would almost appear that Mexico is headed toward devastation with the nation become a failed state and the drug lords taking over even more towns and cities.

But look beyond the headlines, and it is clear that the increasingly ruthlessness [which has included beheading soldiers], as the Mexican government states, is a sign that the cartels are losing the war.

First, the death toll is mostly confined to the drug cartels as they fight it out between one another over an increasingly smaller market share. 80% of the deaths are intra-cartel violence. Further, 60% of the violence is confined to three cites: "Ciudad Juárez in Chihuahua and Tijuana in Baja California, both just across the American border; and Culiacán in Sinaloa." And Mexico's murder is still low at 11 per 100,000.

The Mexican government has also captured record tonnes of drugs. In two years, 70 tonnes of cocaine [in one trawler 26 tonnes - a record] have been seized

Further, $260 million and 31,000 weapons have been seized.

Arrests are also high. 58,000 people, including many big shots who absence have led to intra-fighting, have been arrested. One is Santiago Meza, or the El Pozolero ["soupmaker"], who cooked in acid more than 300 people who had crossed the drug cartel[s]. The Mexican government has also extradited many of the top drug lords to the United States. As opposed to the ineffective Mexican prison system, drug lords cannot continue to run their operations from American prisoners.

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[Mexican soldier captures a member of one of the several drug cartels in Mexico.]

So the Mexican government is winning the war on drugs, but as revenues from drugs dry up the drug cartels are adapting. The cartels are moving into old-fashion mob extortion threatening Mexican businesses if they do not pay up. Even foreign firms - multinationals - are targeted with threats of burning down their warehouses. One American firm has already payed up.

What will these mean for Mexico, is it about to see a new mob hold over business? One that would certainly greatly undermine foreign investment. Probably not. The drugs may resort to extortion as a temporary solution, but the Mexican security authorities and the government are not content to just driving the drug cartels away from the drug trade but out of illegal and violent actions all together. So as the authorities continue to track down the cartels, the new mob violence may also be on the way out as well. At least I hope so for Mexico, and for America to have a stable neighbor down south.