Corruption Crisis- How Cartels Bribed High-Level Mexican Officials -

The greatest part of the problem is corruption. Several high-ranking Mexican government officials have been implicated in corruption and collusion with drug cartels. But many people will ask, how does the Mexican government fail to control these towns and cities? The reason is that the cartels are the law, either by public profile or by owning the local police and politicians. Besides drugs, human trafficking, and weapons, they operate prostitution, protection rackets, gambling, and they tax businesses, appoint their own police chiefs, and even control mayoral elections to put their surrogates in office. A recent report found that in over 30% of Mexico, the government either shares control with cartels or has no control at all. Multiple presidential candidates have been accused of accepting drug money. Here are some Gennaro Garcia Luna, the Secretary of Public Security from 2006 to 2012, under President Felipe Calderon, was convicted in the US for accepting millions in bribes from the Sinaloa cartel, engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise, making false statements, facilitating drug shipments, and providing sensitive law enforcement information to the cartel, which also compromised USDA assets. He was sentenced to 38 years in US federal prison. Jesus Gutierrez Robolo was a Mexican army general and head of the National Institute to Combat Drugs from 1996 to 1997, and he was arrested after evidence surfaced of his collaboration with drug traffickers. He was convicted for aiding drug lord Amado Carrillo Fuentes of the Juarez cartel, initially sentenced to 31 years, later increased to 40 years in prison. Tomas Yarrington was the governor of Tamaulipas from 1999 to 2004, and he was arrested in Italy by Interpol in 2017 and extradited to the US in 2018. He pled guilty in the US to money laundering and accepting bribes from the Gulf and Los US District Judge Rolando Olvera sentenced Yarrington to 108 months imprisonment. Julio Cesar Godoy Toscano was a federal deputy in 2009 and the half-brother of Michoacan governor Leonel Godoy. He was accused of working for the La Familia Michoacana cartel, money laundering, receiving funds from drug lord Servando Gomez Martinez, and he used his personal position to protect the cartel. He has been a fugitive since 2010. Jose Luis Abarca Velasquez, the former mayor of Iguala, Guerrero, from 2012 to 2014, along with his wife Maria de Los Angeles Pineda, were implicated in the murders of six people on the of 43 students from the Ayotzinapa Teacher Training College in 2014. They were handed over to the Guerreros Unidos drug gang to be killed by the local police who were also on the cartel payroll. They were arrested in Mexico City on November 4, 2014, and are still awaiting trial in collusion with the Guerreros Unidos cartel. Ironically, just two days after he took office, former Mexican President López Obrador had signed a decree to create a super-commission to conduct a new investigation into the case of the 43 missing students, which never happened. These cases underscore the challenges Mexico faces in combating corruption and cartel infiltration within its political and law enforcement institutions.