The Gifts of a Mexican Drug Lord

Law enforcement officials said Cardenas might also be trying to build sympathy as the court considers trafficking charges against him.

"Individuals like Osiel Cardenas want to be seen as Robin Hood," said Michael Vigil, who was head of the DEA's San Diego office until his retirement in May. "That's the way they play it; they manipulate public sentiment."

Raymundo Ramos, head of a human rights organization in Nuevo Laredo, said he thought Cardenas was trying to create the kind of popular following that the late Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar cultivated in his home city of Medellin, where he built hundreds of homes for the poor. Ramos said Cardenas wanted the poor to see him as more generous than a government that has done little to improve education, health and other basic services.

"The message he's sending to the masses is, 'I'm the good one and the government is the bad one,' " Ramos said. "He's really taking advantage of the absence of power left by the federal government."

On the morning of Children's Day, cars with loudspeakers trawled the poor neighborhoods of Valle Hermoso, playing a recording inviting children to a big party with free gifts at the Spanish Casino, a private hall near the center of downtown.

Francisca Montalvo Gomez, 39, heard the cars as they passed on the dirt road in front of her tiny wooden house. Two of her daughters, Jaley and Vanessa, ran over to the hall and found hundreds of children already lined up. The girls said they waited in line for about 30 minutes, and each received a doll from the clowns who were passing out gifts, juice and candy. Standing in their front yard three weeks later, they still giggled as one of their gifts, a baby doll, answered its little cell phone and sang a well-known pop song.

Montalvo said she had not known who was handing out the gifts, figuring it was probably the local government or a church group, until the local press revealed the next day that it was Cardenas.

"Maybe he regrets his crimes," she said. "He must be a good person if he's doing things to help poor people."

Around the corner, Karen Lopez played with a large "Magnum Fighters" robot she received at the party, after spending two hours in line with her mother, Abigail Lopez. She stored the robot carefully in its box; her mother said it probably cost nearly $20, and that Karen, 4, had never had such an expensive toy. She took out her robot and laughed in delight as it walked across a tabletop, buzzing and flashing its lights.

Sergio Torres Martinez, a local official in Valle Hermoso, said the municipal government could not compete with Cardenas, whose organization is believed to run several billion dollars worth of cocaine into Texas every year. Torres said the local government had thrown parties for children but could not afford expensive presents. "It's discouraging when a private citizen, a criminal, can make the work of city hall look so small," he said.

Torres said the government tried to counter the drug traffickers' heroic image among young people by teaching a class in local elementary schools, stressing the values of family life and good citizenship and the dangers of drugs. He said the city had put as much money as it could into youth sports programs.

"Since we can't fight the narcos directly, we have to fight other ways," he said.

The cartels are also fighting for public support in creative ways.

Carmona, the director of the Casa Hogar Elim, said she had asked the local Nuevo Laredo government for 17 years to pave the dirt street in front of the children's home. After failed attempts by the city last year, she said some men, who were accompanied by local reporters, did the paving work, saying they had been sent by Cardenas.

City officials, apparently unhappy that Cardenas was paving the road, sent their own employees, who dug up all the work his men had done, leaving the road a mud pit for another month, Carmona said. They are now paving it again.

Carmona said that the families of many of the children in her home had been destroyed by drugs and their parents were in jail or dead. But she said she saw no irony accepting toys from a major drug dealer. As an evangelical Christian, she said, she preaches forgiveness and teaches the children right from wrong.

"The first thing I tell the children is to pray to God for him, that he's not a hero," she said.

When reporters came to interview Carmona about Cardenas, she said she looked into the television cameras and spoke directly to him: "If you're watching, thank you. Christ loves you and we are praying for you."

Jordan reported from Mexico City.