http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/APStories/stories/D8U0MAOG1.html
Link: Dallas Morning News | News for Dallas, Texas
| Texas/Southwest.
(...)
"President Felipe Calderon has made the fight against organized crime and drug trafficking a cornerstone of his administration, deploying more than 24,000 agents to violence-wracked areas.
"In a December speech marking his first year in office, Calderon said security forces had arrested some 15,000 people with links to organized crime and made numerous drug busts since January 2007.
"Last March, police raided the Mexico City home of Chinese businessman Zhenli Ye Gon and seized some $207 million in cash allegedly linked to one of the Western Hemisphere's largest trafficking rings for pseudoephedrine, the main chemical ingredient in methamphetamine. (...)
"In the wake of the March raid, Mexico now requires prescriptions for medicines that contain pseudoephedrine and blocks over-the-counter sales of the decongestant.
"But traffickers have adapted by using alternate routes to smuggle restricted chemicals into Mexico, importing non-restricted precursor chemicals and mislabeling substances to trick customs officials, the Justice Department report said.
"Mexican cartels are also increasingly distributing the drugs themselves in U.S. markets such as Los Angeles, Chicago and Dallas, according to the report, selling directly through street gangs and bypassing established networks.
Violent crime in Mexico remains rampant despite Calderon's much-touted drug offensive..."
