US arrests 2,000 in Mexican drug trafficking probe

HOUSTON - More than 2,200 people have been arrested during a 22-month investigation aimed at thwarting Mexican drug cartel efforts to distribute narcotics across the U.S. and funnel guns and money back south of the border, federal authorities said Thursday.

The probe, called Project Deliverance, focused on shutting down many of the cartels' U.S.-based cells that smuggle drugs, including cocaine, heroin and marijuana, across the U.S.-Mexico border, collect them at major distribution points like Houston and then distribute them nationwide.

Many cells also were responsible for laundering drug profits through real estate purchases and smuggling the proceeds as well as guns back into Mexico to support cartel operations, officials said.

All of Mexico's major drug organizations, including the Beltran Leyva, Gulf and Sinaloa cartels, were targeted in the investigation.

"This operation has struck a significant blow against the cartels, but make no mistake: we know that as successful as this operation was, it was just one battle in what is an ongoing war," U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said at a Washington, D.C. news conference.

More than 400 arrests were made Wednesday in 16 states, including Texas, California and Virginia.

The Justice Department says the probe has led to the seizure of $154 million in currency, more than 1,200 pounds of methamphetamine, 2.5 tons of cocaine, more than 1,400 pounds of heroin and 69 tons of marijuana.

Those arrested included Carlos Ramon Castro-Rocha, accused of running a major black tar heroin smuggling operation from Mexico. Castro-Rocha was a middle man for Mexican cartels who worked for both the Sinaloa and the Familia cartels, moving about 70 kilos of heroin per month to the United States and then bringing $2 million back to Mexico monthly, said a U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly about the case.

Castro-Rocha, 36, from Sinaloa, was arrested in Mexico on May 30 and awaits extradition to the U.S. He faces heroin trafficking charges in Arizona and North Carolina.

In Mexico, Ramon Pequeno, head of the anti-narcotics division of Mexico's federal police, said U.S.-Mexico cooperation has been key in arresting traffickers.

People like Castro-Rocha "keep a low profile, manage significant amounts of drugs and money, are little known and don't belong to any traditional drug trafficking organization, which makes it difficult to identify and capture them," Pequeno said. "It is at this stage that the exchange of information and the collaboration with authorities from other countries is heightened."

The Drug Enforcement Administration, the FBI, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement worked on the effort with state and local law enforcement agencies.

Arrests in Texas exemplified how officials said the federal probe disrupted cartel operations in the U.S.

In Houston and south Texas, officials said they shut down cells from the Beltran Leyva, Gulf and Zeta cartels that smuggled drugs into the U.S. in fake hay bales, school buses and dump trucks and also laundered millions of dollars in drug proceeds through the purchase of more than 70 residential lots in Hidalgo County. Those indicted in south Texas included Hernan Guerra, the police chief of Sullivan City, a small town near the Mexican border. He is accused of helping smuggle marijuana into the U.S.

"Each dollar we take is one they can't use to support their operations in Mexico," said Jose Angel Moreno, the U.S. attorney based in Houston.

In West Texas, 13 indictments were returned against 130 people directly associated with the two dominant cartels in the Ciudad Juarez, Mexico area: the Jarez and Sinaloa cartels.

"These organizations will be forced to recruit and develop new alliances for the transportation and distribution of their illicit drugs," said Joseph Arabit, El Paso's DEA chief. "By relying on less experienced and less trusted individuals in support of their activities they'll be more vulnerable to infiltration, further disruption and exploitation by law enforcement authorities."

-Associated Press

Mexico embraces food tourism to bring visitors

Photo by Eduardo Verdugo | AP
Mexican chef Patricia Quintana, left, talks with an unidentified chef as suckling pigs are displayed at a butchers stall at the San Juan market in Mexico City, May 31. Quintana, Mexico's official culinary ambassador, lead a 10-day "Aromas and Flavors" gastronomical tour of Mexico.

MEXICO CITY - They sniffed the concha rolls, scrutinized the granola, photographed the salsa and nibbled the chilaquiles, Mexico's crunchy-warm breakfast of corn tortillas fried in eggs and tomatillo sauce.

Amidst the fresh squeezed orange juice and high altitude sunshine at the rooftop bistro there was a buzz of excitement — and whispers of "save room for later" — as 100 chefs, journalists, researchers and foodies took their first bites of a 10-day "Aromas and Flavors" gastronomical tour of Mexico, part of the government's latest effort to attract tourists interested in something other than beaches and pyramids.

"We're excited to help Mexico improve its image, sharing all the richness, variety, flavors and abundance of dishes that are Mexican cuisine," said Mexico City's tourism director Alejandro Rojas Díaz Durán.

A typical Mexican culinary tour day starts with fresh mango and papaya, hand beaten hot chocolate, sweet rolls in fresh double-clotted cream, eggs poached in a spicy turkey stew. As the hours pass, there are pork loin tacos, then small fried battered fish, fresh tortillas, toasted grasshoppers sprinkled with salt and lime, roasted corn on the cob dipped in chili powder, slow cooked cow head, chicken vegetable soup and the omnipresent rice, beans, avocado and salsa.

"We're going to eat and drink and eat and drink and eat and drink!" laughed food writer Betty Fussell, who flew in from New York, leafing through an itinerary that will take busloads of adventurous eaters through five states.

At the helm of this barely containable passel of wandering, sampling, questioning foodies is the ever-serene chef and restaurateur Patricia Quintana, Mexico's official Cuisine Ambassadress, who herds her minions from restaurant to market to museum without raising her voice or dropping her serene smile.

For Quintana, whose work is subsidized by the Mexican government, bringing gastronomical tourism to her country is a labor of love.

"Mexico offers innumerable riches for tourism, but beyond the beaches, the archeological sites and the ecotourism, there's the cuisine, which should be known throughout the world, providing magnificent opportunities for visitors," she said.

Quintana's tour is one of many now available to would-be tourists in Mexico. Dozens of culinary guides offer tours that can be as short as an afternoon to several weeks. Prices vary, but are typically around $350 per day including hotel rooms and lots of food. Many tours include cooking lessons, as well.

The burgeoning industry was launched last year when Mexico's government began investing in culinary tourism as swine flu and drug cartel violence put a dent in the country's second most lucrative industry.

In addition to subsidizing some culinary tour guides, the government has also launched a series of "culinary routes" in the country. The Thousand Flavors of the Mole route, for example, features Tlaxcala, Puebla and Oaxaca, all cities known for their history, culture and the cooking of the complex Mexican culinary specialty, mole. The routes are mapped out, with key stops identified on the way, along with hotel and restaurant recommendations.

"We know that today, more than ever, to attract tourists and enhance their stays and spending in our country, it is necessary to provide products and services with greater added value and that are differentiated according to the tastes, time and resources of each traveler," said Mexico's tourism director Gloria Guevara.

Promoters hope they get another boost this month when the United Nations is expected to decide on the country's petition to add Mexican's cuisine to UNESCO's list of protected cultural heritage.

And culinary tours incorporate the history, visiting Diego Rivera's murals depicting cocoa bean growers in the National Palace and dining in former home-turned museum of famed composer Jose Alfredo Jimenez, whose dishes were flavored from orange and lemons grown on trees in the garden.

But the focus is on eating. And eating.

Days begin as early as 6:30 a.m. (eggs with cactus, sweet rolls with locally grown cinnamon) and can end as late as 1 a.m. (tequila and salty nuts, fresh cheese platters, tropical fruit sorbets) with visits to chili roasters and tequila distilleries, along with convents, museums and castles.

They have private seatings in Mexico's finest restaurants and gather in homes of traditional Mexican women cooking the same dishes their Aztec ancestors prepared.

"To see the foods is wonderful, but to taste so much in just 10 days, it's stupendous," said Jose Luis Curiel, a chemical engineer who teaches cooking in Mexico City.

Food, in Mexico, takes a prominent place in society.

Restaurants are the second largest private employers in the country, with 4.8 million involved in the business.

And life revolves around food here. Mexicans typically eat four meals a day, coffee and a roll at sun up, eggs and meat a few hours later, a heavy afternoon meal that can take a few hours and several courses, and a warm drink with bread or tortillas before bed. And of course there are snacks.

"In Mexico, cooking is like alchemy, like magic, when you see how they combine ancient ingredients to make a mole or a salsa. The more I see, the more I realize I have to learn about our cuisine," said tour-goer Pedro Sanudo.

On day three of the tour, at an exotic food market in Mexico City, food writer Herdis Luke of Hamburg, Germany, snapped photos of rare fruits stacked neatly by the hundreds — spiky tropical rambutans with creamy, honey flesh; lumpy nonis coveted for their nutritious juice; tangy-sweet orange-pulped mameys; blood red pitayas grown on cactus.

"I don't know of any other country with so many tastes," Luke sighed.

-Associated Press

55 bodies recovered from old silver mine in Mexico

TAXCO, Mexico - At least 55 bodies have been recovered from an abandoned silver mine that became a dumping ground for apparent victims of Mexico's drug violence, authorities said Monday.

The search for more victims ended over the weekend at the mine on the outskirts of Taxco, a colonial-era tourist town famous for its silver jewelry, said Albertico Guinto, attorney general for the state of Guerrero.

Guinto said the overall toll could still rise, however, as forensic examiners try to determine whether other human remains, clothing and shoes found in the nearly 500-foot-deep (150-meter-deep) shaft correspond to victims already included in the tally.

Most of the bodies have not been identified, but prosecutors recently said one was a recently kidnapped prison director. At least 15 people have been detained in the case.

Police discovered the mass grave in late May based on a tip after the arrest of an organized crime suspect in the nearby city of Iguala.

Also Monday, authorities in the Caribbean resort of Cancun were working to identify six bodies found in a cave over the weekend.

Quintana Roo state attorney general Francisco Alor initially said after the bodies were found Sunday that three had been cut open and their hearts removed.

He retracted that statement Monday, saying autopsies showed the organs were stabbed multiple times and essentially destroyed, but were never removed. Toxicology results found drugs in all six victims.

In the northern state of Durango, police reported the discovery of six decapitated men along with two heads.

Three more victims with severed heads were found by police in the central state of Morelos. A note left at the scene threatened people with ties to alleged drug trafficker Edgar Valdez Villareal, who authorities say is fighting Hector Beltran Leyva for control of the Beltran Leyva cartel.

Drug gang violence has claimed more than 22,700 lives since President Felipe Calderon launched a crackdown on cartels shortly after office in late 2006.

-Associated Press

Mexican band builds; romanticizing drug violence

MEMPHIS, Tenn. - In November, the police chief in the Mexican border city of Tijuana canceled a concert by a famous group of musicians after they released a song that suggested they had real-life links to the drug traffickers they'd been singing about for years.

Since then, the band has gone elsewhere. On Friday night, a burst of prerecorded gunfire echoed through a Memphis nightclub as the red-suited members of Los Tucanes de Tijuana launched their signature song, "El Papa de los Pollitos."

The lyrics describe a mob boss who calls himself "The daddy of the little chickens" and threatens rivals with an AK-47. "He who gets involved will die, if he doesn't make arrangements with me."

Los Tucanes, or The Toucans, are among the best-known composers of narcocorridos, Mexican ballads with a polka beat that often celebrate real-life drug lords as outlaw heroes.

The accordion-heavy songs are controversial in Mexico, where an estimated 6,587 people died in drug violence last year.

"Society sees drug ballads as nice, pleasant, inconsequential and harmless, but they are the opposite," Mexican lawmaker Oscar Martin Arce told The Associated Press. He has proposed a law to restrict music and movies that celebrate crime.

Despite the criticism, the music remains popular in Mexico and among immigrants in the U.S. Los Tucanes have held several shows in Memphis in recent years.

Like many Mexican groups that visit Memphis, they perform at venues that cater to immigrants and their shows aren't advertised in English. Their tour also includes stops in Tulsa, Okla.; Nashville; and Louisville. Hundreds of people paid as much as $60 for tickets to a recent show at Eclipse Discoteque nightclub on Getwell Road in south Shelby County.

The popularity of the music is a reminder of local links to Mexico's drug war. Most of the illegal drugs consumed here are delivered through Mexico, law enforcement officials say, and the city has long been a distribution point for drugs.

Mario Quintero, the 39-year-old lead singer and composer for Los Tucanes, says the group plays drug ballads because the audience wants them.

"We only play what the people want to hear, and since we depend on them, we can't stop pleasing them," he said.

He says it's freedom of speech and that it's not a negative influence.

Quintero, a soft-spoken man with a big mustache and a black hat, flatly denied connections to real-life drug dealers. "We don't have anything to do with drug trafficking or the traffickers. We make music."

Others have doubts.

The song that got them in trouble was about a Tijuana gangster named Raydel Lopez Uriarte, or "El Muletas," who belonged to a cartel known for beheadings and dissolving rivals' bodies in caustic soda, the AP reported.

The song, which appeared on the Internet last year, praises the criminal: "Muletas, how you have grown. The laws do nothing to you."

The song also includes a shout-out from Muletas to his friends.

Asked to explain how the message from Muletas got in the song, Quintero says people constantly approach him with requests and that he doesn't investigate what they do for a living.

"If someone says 'Hey, send a shout-out to Fulano,' I send it, because I don't believe I'm committing any crime," he said.

When the song appeared, Tijuana Police Chief Julian Leyzaola canceled a concert at the last minute. About 11,000 tickets had been sold, Quintero said.

The number of tickets sold underscores the group's popularity. The six-man band that started in the 1980s in a Tijuana bar has sold 2.2 million recordings in the U.S. alone, plus millions in other countries. Some of the band's biggest hits are dance or love songs that have nothing to do with drugs.

Songs by Los Tucanes are a staple on the three-hour Friday night radio show called "Heavy and Banned Ballads" on Memphis Spanish-language radio station WGSF-1030 AM.

The show specializes in corridos, or story songs. Host Aroldo Velasquez is quick to point out that the songs are on topics ranging from cockfighting to tragic love, not just drugs.

But some songs make clear references to drugs and drug violence. One song called "500 Shots" describes a band of ex-soldiers who carry out an assassination mission for the Mafia.

"'500 Shots' speaks of the truth," Velasquez said. "The truth that's happening in the border between Mexico and the United States."

On each show, Velasquez reads letters from local prisoners greeting friends and family. Foreigners make up only 2 percent of inmates in the local jail, 201 Poplar.

But at FCI Memphis, a federal lockup, one in five prisoners is from Mexico. The inmates were arrested around the country and serve long sentences, often for drugs.

Velasquez says prisoners are human beings who can change and that in some cases they're innocent.

"That's why I pass along the letters, because I believe they're not all guilty."

The radio station carried ads for the concert by Los Tucanes, who didn't go onstage until just before 2 a.m. Saturday.

What followed was a performance in which the skill, cheerfulness and energy of the musicians often overshadowed the menace of the words. Couples danced and women climbed onstage to kiss Quintero on the cheek. One drunken man did it too.

Between songs, Quintero read requests and shout-outs from the audience. One was for La Familia Michoacana, a drug cartel.

Just before 4 a.m., there was a final request for a song called "La Pinata." The band obliged, singing about a party where people break open a pinata that's stuffed with drugs, not sweets.

"The cake wasn't made of bread, it was Colombian cake / Yes, they serve it on plates, but five or six grams at a time / If you want to make pinatas, I've got the bags right here."

-Associated Press

Drug-torn Mexico favors scrapping municipal police

MEXICO CITY - Mexico's president is urging approval of a plan to replace local police departments with state forces so the government can better fight unrelenting drug violence that has claimed nearly 23,000 lives.

Part of the goal is to root out corruption by replacing generally low-paid, poorly educated local police, who are seen as more susceptible to bribery and intimidation by the powerful cartels.

It also aims to streamline operations and improve communication between police, President Felipe Calderon told a public safety commission Thursday before it approved the plan at the end of a three-hour session.

"We want a safe Mexico in which there is no room for the fear, violence and impunity that we suffer today," Calderon said.

Pending a cost analysis, Calderon intends to present it to Congress when it resumes session in September.

Mexico's Public Safety secretary first floated the idea last year, but it received a lukewarm response because some officials worried that it would be hard to police many of Mexico's 2,439 municipalities if local departments were eliminated. Only 12 of Mexico's 31 states even have their own police forces.

Some of the officials who voiced those concerns have since stepped down or been voted out of office. It's still unclear how it will fare in Congress.

So far, the military and federal police have led the war against drug cartels launched shortly after Calderon took office in December 2006.

Yet some states have already moved to consolidate municipal forces into regional departments — such as Morelos, which has seen dozens of killings as gangs battle for control of a cartel once led by Arturo Beltran Leyva.

The government is also proposing to create a national crime database that would include information on kidnappings, stolen cars and prisoners. A separate database would contain photos of all police officers, their fingerprints and other identifying details.

A recent high-profile campaign to fight extortion and kidnapping by compiling a registry of cell phone users around the country ended up going awry, however, after the users' personal data turned up for sale on two websites.

Prosecutors are investigating, Interior Department spokesman Luis Estrada said Thursday.

The mayor of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico's deadliest city with 2,601 drug-related killings reported last year, backed Calderon's proposal and said municipal police are often easy prey in small, close-knit towns.

"The more (a police officer) knows, the more he becomes known," Jose Reyes Ferriz said. "All this makes him more vulnerable to criminals."

Nuevo Leon Mayor Rodrigo Medina urged the government to create more jobs and education opportunities if it wants to see a drop in crime.

"There is no public safety model that will resolve the situation we face right now," he said, a day after two federal police officers were killed and one wounded in the nearby town of Garcia.

Three alleged members of the Zetas cartel have been charged in the attack, said Luis Cardenas Palomino, regional security chief of the federal police.

Nuevo Leon state prosecutors said the officers had stopped a car for a search when gunmen in several SUVs pulled up and opened fire.

Hours later, police found the bodies of a local traffic officer and a trainee inside a car in the nearby town of Santiago.

-Associated Press

US-Mexico border isn't so dangerous

MEXICO CITY - It's one of the safest parts of America, and it's getting safer.

It's the U.S.-Mexico border, and even as politicians say more federal troops are needed to fight rising violence, government data obtained by The Associated Press show it actually isn't so dangerous after all.

The top four big cities in America with the lowest rates of violent crime are all in border states: San Diego, Phoenix, El Paso and Austin, according to a new FBI report. And an in-house Customs and Border Protection report shows that Border Patrol agents face far less danger than street cops in most U.S. cities.

The Customs and Border Protection study, obtained with a Freedom of Information Act request, shows 3 percent of Border Patrol agents and officers were assaulted last year, mostly when assailants threw rocks at them. That compares with 11 percent of police officers and sheriff's deputies assaulted during the same period, usually with guns or knives.

In addition, violent attacks against agents declined in 2009 along most of the border for the first time in seven years. So far this year assaults are slightly up, but data is incomplete.

"The border is safer now than it's ever been," said U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman Lloyd Easterling.

He said one factor is that with fewer jobs available amid the U.S. recession, illegal immigration has dropped. And responding to security concerns after 9-11, the Border Patrol has doubled the number of agents in the region since 2004.

Nonetheless, border lawmakers and governors say their region is under siege and needs more troops.

"Violence in the vicinity of the U.S.-Mexico border continues to increase at an alarming rate. We believe that this violence represents a serious threat to the national security of the United States as well as a serious threat to U.S. citizens that live along the 1,969-mile long border," a dozen bipartisan members of Congress from border states wrote President Obama.

In Arizona, a stringent new immigration law takes effect next month, requiring police to question suspects' immigration status if officers believe they're in the country illegally. Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer said in a televised interview last weekend: "We are out here on the battlefield getting the impact of all this illegal immigration, and all the crime that comes with it."

In response to the concerns from the border states, Obama pledged to send 1,200 National Guard troops to help and spend an extra $500 million on border security.

His one-time rival for the presidency, Arizona Sen. John McCain, said he should send at least 6,000 troops, which are needed because he said Arizona leads the nation in marijuana seizures, suffered 368 kidnappings in 2008 and has the highest property crime rates in the U.S.

But FBI crime reports for 2009 says violent crime in Arizona declined. And violent crimes in southwest border counties are among the lowest in the nation per capita — they've dropped by more than 30 percent in the last two decades. Of America's 25 largest cities, San Diego — with one out of four residents an immigrant — has the lowest number of violent crimes per capita.

Opponents of increased border security are frustrated by descriptions of a wave of violence when the statistics show the region to be relatively safe.

"Politicians are hyping up this incredible fear across the country about the border, but these numbers show these are lies being perpetrated on the American public," said immigrant advocate Isabel Garcia at Tucson-based Derechos Humanos. "The warnings about violence are just an excuse to crack down on migrants who want to work and be with their families."

Even residents of the border region who want more security are surprised by the talk of violence.

"I have to say, a lot of this is way overblown," said Gary Brasher of Tuboc, Arizona, who is president of the Coalition for a Safe and Secure Border.

So why send troops to the region?

"That's really something to ask the White House," Easterling said.

White House spokesman Mike Hammer said "there are other rationales for why those border deployments are occurring" but declined to name any of them. "I would really put this to the Department of Homeland Security," he said.

Homeland Security spokesman Matthew Chandler provided a written statement that said more help is needed to build upon "the unprecedented resources the Administration has dedicated over the past 16 months and will serve to expand long-term the successes that have been realized to date."

Governors along the border say improved crime rates don't counter their concerns about risk.

"The federal government currently does not know who is entering our country and when, which obviously creates tremendous security concerns," said Brewer's spokesman Paul Senseman.

And in Texas, "we respond to threats based on risk, not occurrence," said Gov. Rick Perry's spokeswoman Katherine Cesinger. Thus Perry has activated a secret state border protection emergency plan.

"With the safety of Texans on the line, we can't afford to wait," he said.

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, who ordered the National Guard to patrol the border in his state six weeks ago, is concerned about "the potential for drug cartel violence spilling over the border," spokesman Gilbert Gallegos said.

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger spokesman Francisco Castillo said that while "we've seen some success," troops are needed "to provide more security along our borders."

Concerns about danger come, in part, from Mexico, where raging cartel violence has taken 23,000 lives in three years, often within view of the U.S. border. There's frequent talk of the potential for that violence to spread across the border, although so far it hasn't happened to any significant degree.

Several high-profile and frightening incidents have added to the fears: Authorities suspect an illegal immigrant working for drug smugglers killed Arizona rancher Robert Krentz in March, and last year Border Patrol agent Robert Rosas, 30, was murdered while on patrol near San Diego.

"Agents now have to question if they will be ambushed," U.S. District Judge M. James Lorenz said as he sentenced a 17-year-old Mexican to 40 years for killing Rosas.

In fact, agents in the San Diego region are less likely to be attacked these days.

"Agent Rosas' death changed the way we do business. Agents are on high alert, we have to be ready. But if you just look at the numbers, assaults here are down 27 percent," said Border Patrol spokesman Jerry Conley, who worked with Rosas. He said that since Rosas' death, officers don't venture into potentially dangerous situations without backup. Solo patrols are rare, and they emphasize safety precautions.

There are exceptions to the trend: Assaults on agents in the Laredo, Texas, region increased from 44 in 2008 to 118 in 2009, and they increased in the neighboring Rio Grande Valley as well. Agents also fired their guns on 49 separate occasions in 2009, a 50 percent increase from 2008.

Customs spokesman Easterling said that while fewer people are trying to sneak across the border, those who do are more likely "engaged in activity other than illegal entry, such as drug smuggling, and are more likely to use violence as a means to help them escape apprehension."

But the bigger picture is one of increased safety. In fiscal year 2009, there were 1,073 violent attacks — mostly thrown rocks, bottles and sticks but also 48 incidents in which a gun was fired — against the 20,119 Border Patrol agents, down from 1,097 violent incidents against 17,819 agents in 2008.

In addition to those agents, another 22,000 officers work at the nation's border crossings and airports, checking people as they enter and exit the country.

It's one of the safest jobs in law enforcement: Last year 17 of them were assaulted, a 74 percent decrease from 2008.

Edward Alden, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, said it's time for lawmakers to reconsider what they'd like to see happening in the region.

"Border security has become the most overused, and least understood, concept in the struggle over what to do about our broken immigration system," he said. "While an election year may not be the best time, the United States finally needs an honest debate over what it means to secure the country's borders."

-Associated Press

Study: Mexico drug cartels avoid bank deposits

MEXICO CITY - Financial experts studying Mexico's drug cartel proceeds say less than half the money smuggled out of the U.S. each year ends up in a bank.

They say the rest is either stashed or directly spent in Mexico.

Estimates say between $19 billion and $29 billion are smuggled out of the U.S. each year.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Assistant Administrator John Morton unveiled the findings from a binational criminal proceeds study on Wednesday in Mexico City.

Drug gang violence has soared since President Felipe Calderon launched crackdown on traffickers in late 2006. More than 22,700 people have been killed.

-Associated Press