Mexican Drug Cartels Making Audacious Pitch for Recruits

A banner in Nuevo Laredo advertises jobs with Los Zetas, a hit squad for the Gulf cartel. It includes a contact number. (Courtesy Of El Maana Newspaper)

"We are all Zetas. No doubt about it, we are all Zetas," he said.

Marcelino said police had harassed his neighbors, trumping up phony criminal violations and extracting bribes to avoid incarceration. Previous local governments tried to throw him and other squatters off government land. Drug traffickers, however, sided with the squatters, earning their enduring gratitude by paying to build cinder-block shacks and distributing clothing.

"I trust the Zetas more than the thieving police and soldiers," Marcelino said. "The police are rats."

Cartels have long been known for showy displays designed to gain public support, though their public campaigns have become more audacious.

Last week, clowns entertained 500 children and gave out presents at a party in the city of Acuña, across the border from southeast Texas. A banner said the party was sponsored by Osiel Cárdenas Guillén, the Gulf cartel kingpin who is now imprisoned on drug trafficking charges in the United States.

"Your friend Osiel Cárdenas Guillén wishes you a Happy Children's Day," the banner read. "You are the future of Mexico."

For every cheeky public display, there are also darker messages, including threats carved into the bodies of shooting victims. In January, drug cartels are suspected of having left a banner with the names of 17 "executable" police officials on a monument to fallen officers in Ciudad Juarez, across the border from El Paso. In typically macabre style, the banner was accompanied by funeral flowers. Since then, at least nine of the men named on the banner have been assassinated.

Nearly all the cartels' messages get big play in local media, especially in small but well-read afternoon papers that specialize in gory crime coverage. Mexican reporters and editors say they are often contacted by local drug chieftains who demand that photographs of cartel banners and victims be displayed prominently. The threats carry weight -- Mexico trails only Iraq in journalist deaths.

Faced with a blizzard of publicity about every cartel pronouncement, some military officials fear they are losing the information war. A top military official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment, said cartels have succeeded in getting the public on their side in some places and in recruiting soldiers to their ranks. The general said internal rules prevent the army from using paid advertisements to counter the drug cartels' public messages.

"Lamentably, it's human nature for some of our men to fall to the temptations of money," the general said.

At the same time, the cartels have seized on human rights allegations against the military to win the hearts of some residents, the general said. Cartels prize the allegiance of residents because they can provide hiding places during crackdowns or refuse to cooperate with authorities investigating trafficking networks.

Mexican soldiers are prime targets for the recruitment efforts by cartels.

In an interview, former Gen. José Francisco Gallardo said that some soldiers don't initially intend to join criminal groups after deserting, but that once they leave the military, they find it almost impossible to get legitimate employment without revealing their status as deserters. That makes them easy targets for job offers -- both the splashy sort that appeared in Nuevo Laredo and quieter entreaties -- presented by drug lords, Gallardo said.

"This is one of the main origins of insecurity in our country," Gallardo said. "These soldiers are lost -- fugitives in their own country -- and they're angry."

Once they join drug gangs, the deserters seem "cool" to many people, according to Martínez, the Nuevo Laredo school principal and activist. Children in his neighborhood see banners advertising jobs in drug gangs and connect those images with the suddenly prosperous deserters, and other cartel recruits, they meet on the streets. With few opportunities for employment in Mexico's weak economy, the prospect of joining a gang is appealing, he said.

"They see these guys driving around in new pickup trucks and wearing nice clothes, and they're impressed," Martínez said.

A few days after the cartel recruitment banner appeared in Nuevo Laredo, Martínez said, he came across a group of 8-year-olds talking -- as 8-year-olds are wont to do -- about what they wanted to be when they grew up.

One little boy stood up, Martínez said, and proudly announced his hope: "I want to be a Zeta."