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Drug Trade Tyranny on The Border
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The officers stole one ton of marijuana from the Arellano F¿lix drug cartel. But before they could sell the load they were kidnapped. Four days later their bodies were found, Tijuana's new police chief, Jes¿s Alberto Capella, said in an interview.
The killings barely registered in Mexico, numbed by an avalanche of at least 30 police officer murders in the past three months and dozens more in the past year. Their case illuminates the pervasive police corruption created by drug money.
One of every two police officers murdered in Mexico today is directly involved with drug gangs, according to estimates by police officials, prosecutors and drug experts.
Capella, nicknamed "Tijuana Rambo" because he fought his way out of an assassination attempt shortly before taking office, estimates that 15 percent of the city's 2,300 police officers work for drug cartels, earning a monthly stipend as body guards, kidnappers or assassins. In Baja California alone, Mexican justice officials estimate that 30 percent of the local and federal police force is on a cartel payroll.
"We have the enemy in our house," Capella said.
The killings in Loma Bonita here were related to a police corruption case, Capella and other police officials said. A few days earlier, Tijuana police had killed an officer working as a bodyguard for a drug gang that tried to rob an armored car.
Cartel assassins, using police radios, vowed revenge. Within a week, Salda¿a, his family, and two other officers had been murdered.
Some of the killings have come with specific messages taunting Mexican author ities.
During one week in mid-February, six bodies were found with signs lashed to them that included information such as the phone number and address of the Mexican army office set up to receive tips about organized crime. According to analysts, such "narco-messages," some of which are carved into the bodies, are intended to keep residents from reporting tips.
The decline of the Arellano F¿lix cartel's dominance of Tijuana has had the unexpected effect of deepening police corruption.
After one brother was assassinated and two others were arrested, a war erupted because the cartel's new leadership -- including a sister, Enedina -- refused to share territory with the Sinaloa cartel, a police official said on condition of anonymity. Once loyal to the Arellano F¿lix cartel, some police officers switched sides.
"The police became armed wings of the warring cartels," the police official said.
