Mexican Drug War Violence Rises in U.S.

The drug violence that has swept through Mexico is now becoming more evident on the U.S. side of the border as well, the Associated Press reported Feb. 10.

Murder, kidnapping and other violent crimes related to Mexican drug cartels are hitting U.S. cities like Phoenix and Atlanta as well as the border region, law-enforcement officials said. Mexican cartels are believed to have set up operations across the U.S., even in Anchorage, Alaska. “The violence follows the drugs,” said El Paso FBI agent-in-charge David Cuthbertson.

Cartel enforcers kidnap drug customers who fail to pay and beat or kill dealers who skim profits. The cartels have been responsible for a wave of grisly violence in Mexico as they battle each other and the government. “They are capable of doing about anything,” said DEA spokesperson Rusty Payne.

Five men found with their throats slit in Birmingham, Ala., last summer were tortured and killed on orders from a Mexican cartel for failing to pay a $400,000 drug debt. More than 700 kidnappings and home invasions in Phoenix over the past two years were reportedly ordered by the cartels, and officials in Atlanta — a major drug transit point dubbed “the new Southwest border” — also report a rise in drug-related kidnappings.

Officials say the brutality of the gangs matches that employed by Colombian cocaine traffickers in the 1980s.