Mexican drug war toll: 47,500 killed in 5 years

A man lights candles during a protest against violence during Day of the Dead celebrations in Mexico City, Monday, Oct. 31, 2011. / AP Photo/Alexandre Meneghini

MEXICO CITY - Two decapitated bodies were found inside a burning SUV early Wednesday at the entrance to one of Mexico's most luxurious malls, feeding fears drug violence is infiltrating privileged realms previously thought safe.

Police recovered the mutilated bodies before dawn off a toll highway at a shopping mall entrance in the heart of the Santa Fe district that's a haven for international corporations, diplomats and the wealthy. The heads and a threatening message were dumped a few yards away, Mexico City prosecutors said in a statement.

Hours later, the government released a drug war body count recording more than 47,500 victims in five years, echoing independent death tolls tabulated by Mexican media.

Local media published images of the charred car and reported that a note written on hot pink paper was signed by the drug gang Mano con Ojos, or Hand with Eyes. Mexican police had said the gang was weakened by the arrest of its leader, Oscar Osvaldo Garcia, in August.

The victims, a man and a woman in their 30s, had not been identified, prosecutors said. They said the SUV with license plates from neighboring Mexico state had been stolen.

The Centro Santa Fe mall where the charred car was found is one of the country's largest and most glamorous, housing high-end retailers like Coach, Prada, Hugo Boss, Saks Fifth Avenue and Mexican department store Palacio de Hierro. The dump scene was cleaned up so quickly that shoppers weren't even aware anything had happened.

The car was left only hours before Mexico City Mayor Marcelo Ebrard guided a tour of a bridge construction site 300 yards (meters) away. Ebrard spokesman Diego Gutierrez said there was nothing to indicate the bodies were a message to the mayor.

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Mexico's sprawling capital has been something of a haven from the brutal cartel violence that has claimed thousands of lives along the U.S. border and in outlying states. But gangs have been fighting over an increasingly lucrative local drug market for more than a year, mainly in the capital's working class outer neighborhoods and suburbs.

The Santa Fe district has been spared much of that violence and managed to maintain its reputation as a manicured bubble built atop a former landfill on the western edge of Mexico City.

The financial district houses the Mexican headquarters of major corporations, Hewlett Packard and IBM among them, and Iberoamerican University, one of Mexico's top private schools. Modern, heavily guarded high-rises where wealthy Mexicans and foreigners live dot the hilly landscape.

But as the fight among splintering drug cartels intensifies, brazen attackers have reached even into the country's most guarded districts.

"If they don't put an end to this, it could become more frightening here," said Christian Falbi, a 24-year-old college student who lives in an apartment building within walking distance of the mall.

Erubiel Tirado, a security expert who teaches at Iberoamerican University, said the attack shows the government's law enforcement strategy has not dissuaded increasingly brutal drug traffickers.

"We are talking about an area that is under 24-hour surveillance by police and private security and supposedly one of the safest in the capital and in the country, and yet they can act with impunity," Tirado said.

It was a regular day at the mall with dozens of cars parked in the lots and hundreds of shoppers visiting the jewelry shops, shoe and department stores.

Roberto Herrera, a 52-year-old salesman for a bottling company headquartered in a building across the street from the mall, wasn't surprised by the news.

"We have lived with this situation for a while and we are no longer shocked because this is what's been happening in Veracruz, Acapulco and Monterrey," said Herrera, who was having lunch with a co-worker at the T.G.I. Friday's restaurant inside the mall.

In October, the Mano con Ojos gang claimed responsibility for leaving two severed heads on a street across from the nation's top military base in Mexico City.

The gang was once part of the Beltran Leyva drug cartel, and authorities say it has killed dozens while trying to forcefully recruit local drug dealers to its ranks.

Nationwide, 47,515 drug-related killings occurred from December 2006, when President Felipe Calderon deployed thousands of troops to drug hot spots, through September 2011, the Attorney General's Office said Wednesday.

Drug-related killings rose 11 percent in the first nine months of 2011, when 12,903 people were killed, compared to 11,583 in the same period of 2010, the office said.

The figures indicate that three-quarters of all homicides in Mexico are now linked to the drug war.

The Attorney General's Office found one small consolation: "It's the first year (since 2006) that the homicide rate increase has been lower compared to the previous years."

There was a 70 percent jumped in drug-related killings for the same nine-month period of 2010 compared to January-September 2009, when 6,815 deaths were recorded.

Prosecutors said the vast majority of last year's killings occurred in eight of Mexico's 32 states.

The Mexican government had been periodically releasing the number of drug war dead, but it stopped a year ago when the number reached nearly 35,000. Mexico's freedom of information agency had said it would ask for an investigation if prosecutors didn't release the data requested by several journalists by Wednesday.

[jonathankun]

jonathan-kun
wow i find it funny how a lot of people tend to say oh its just mexicans blah blah who cares or that takes care of our illegal problem...thats the type of people who just dont care and were probably raised in a crappy racist family, but thats the sad thing when racism still exist in America i guess racism will stop till we are taught to see that skin color doesnt matter but hey a guy can dream can't he? well lets say it both of the countries fault mexico's because they just want 2 more cents in their pockets not caring for their own citizens safety, And Americas fault because of its addiction to drugs and its mest up intentions to always trying to find scapegoats and their little blind rats that tend to follow the "News" we all know we are getting fed BS when it comes to the news every now and then.

[expatriate2]

deoppressoliber1964 January 12, 2012 7:28 AM EST
Not that I subscribe to the notion, but I guess that's one way of dealing with our illegal immigration problem.

14FREEK January 12, 2012 12:18 AM EST
47000 but they were all mexsickans. so why tell us? We got our own number of how many Americans have died due to mexsickan drugs

Samlv January 11, 2012 11:23 PM EST
Put a zero on that, and I still don't think anyone would care.
Mexico did this to themselves. Do not try to convince me that the US is in any way responsible for their situation, what they do to each other, and why they do it.

Brokennews January 12, 2012 10:31 AM EST
On the flip side, Mexican coffin makers are doing great!!

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FREEK - What a typical gringo representing every reason why America is one of the most hated nations in the world. The hard drugs such as cocaine enter the U.S. by using Mexico as a conduit from South America. There is little or no cocaine production in Mexico so when you talk about "Mexican drugs" (I am proud of my education and won't stoop to your lack of it by referring to Mexsickans) it only shows how pathetically little you know about the problem.

Samlv - The usual "we are always right" arrogance that puts people like you in denial in spite of every fact and statistic that proves you wrong. Yes, the U.S. is in EVERY way responsible for the condition of Mexico and you not only dishonor those who died here fighting YOUR war but dishonor yourself by ignoring the grief and pain you have brought upon Mexico in the exalted name of your millions of addicts.

Brokennews - On the flip side, you are an insensitive idiot.

[morris2196]

We in the US can stop this if we want.

There are two fundamental conditions that are impeding efforts to solve the drug problem. One is that the demand for drugs is resistant to change; a drug addict does not think rationally, and consequently is willing to incur substantial risk and hardship in order to acquire drugs. The other condition is that it is impossible to physically prevent the smuggling of drugs into the US to a meaningful extent.

It seems to me that the only solution is to deter people from selling or importing drugs. Deterrence can be established by executing several thousand drug traffickers every month. After only a few months of executions, large numbers of drug traffickers would decide to get out of the business.

This number of executions would be horrifying, but the drug problem is much more horrifying; drug abuse in the US kills far more people than this; in the US, hundreds of people get killed every week in disputes over drugs; thousands of people have been killed in Mexico by drug cartels over the past year.

If you know how to count, you will see my logic.

[snewsom2997]

I know how to count and it is nothing more than natural selection. Poison you body and die, seems clear cut to me.

[snewsom2997]

Let them poison their bodies and die, the are free adults, when the get sick they can pay for their own care, when the injure someone they can pay the consequences, if they steal from someone to pay for their habit, they pay the consequences. If you want to commit slow suicide by doing drugs, drinking eating, smoking go right ahead, it is fewer people we will have to pay for on SSI.

[rainbowbrew]

Dear Dru War warriors. How many need to die? How many need to have their lives unrooted becasue of your continued attacks.

Cannabis has been shown to kill cancer so why aren't we working ont he health benefits.

For you all in favor of this drug war you are qulity of killing these folks as much as the person who pulled the trigger.

Our US government is totally responsible for this once again failed prohibition. And sending guns to mexico is the evidence that they want to keep it going and make it worse.

The DEA ATF and DOJ are trying hard to contrl people but their methods of death and destruction just put a black eye on all of the USA.

Yep they won't stop till we have killed everyone I guess. death is their pacifier.

[snewsom2997]

Legalize it, stop importing and the violence goes away. As long as you can get rich doing it, and there is not better option in your country you will grow, manufacture and sell drugs, or whatever customers want and cannot get through normal channels.

[mercury3424]

Mexico is comparable to Vietnam circa 1969. What a lovely destination for tourists! It really is a shame what has happened to the tourist industry.

[smittyc]

Mexico needs to bring back the death penalty and use it for drug dealers and murderers. The U.S. should do the same, and fast track both the drug dealers and murderers and should make it retroactive. The U.S.government should should also take the computers the inmates in prisons have away from them. Their posting on these sites is unfair to those who live and work and respect the laws.

[rainbowbrew]

You sir are the reason for all these killings. You go on and on how we should do this and that BUT fully realizing that killing is your objective. You are a horrible person smittyc

[krisd999-2009]

The US murders are twice that due to the drug war. Add up the gang shootings, the burglaries, muggings and robberies to get money for drugs, the war in Afganistan largely funded by poppies. Add the last famous case where the woman shot one of the burglars who were after opiate painkillers. She could have easily been added to the body count. Lately there have been more roberies of pharmacies over cough sirrup that have been made illegal. The more violence you use to keep drugs illegal, the more that violence comes back to you. Karma, "do as you'd have them do to you", really works..doesn't it?

[ivehadit9]

All these 47,000+ slayings and the ultimate punishment for a captive cartel leader, under Mexican law, is life imprisonment?? It doesn't seem to me to be in proportion to the heinous nature of the crime involved. What if some cartel member bribes the prison guard in exchange for his early release, then what??

Mexico is such a hopelessly corrupt country, so much so that I think it would be great for Obama to bring all the troops home and send them to the border and (with Mexico's permission) infiltrate Mexico to help fight the drug cartels and kill them on sight.

The death toll stands at 47,500 in just 5 years?? Mexico should declare an all-out war on these gang thugs and enlist the help of the US military to combat these drug lords. Forget about the law. This is warfare.

[cattiej]

Just what we need to do..legalize drugs...then how many of us would be killed or maime in car accidents etc. because someone was high on drugs. I say, put the drug dealers in prison for life or if they don't want to spent the rest of their life in jail, then can be executed. To anyone who is doing illegal drugs, if you overdose or have a problem, it's your problem. No one forces you to do drugs. I hate that drugs are killing people and I hate drug dealers. If Mexico has a problem, thats because they don't care about themselves except to want to make money. The Americans who are using drugs that came from Mexico can share in the fact that if they didn't use drugs, many of these people wouldn't have died. The Mexican government is also to blame along with their police because they too just care about money and not people. This is a crazy world and why anyone would want to take drugs and make it crazier is well, CRAZY!

[14FREEK]

all this "war" has shown us is that the U S can not stop all the drug production of the world. We need to concentrate our efforts inside our borders-a finite area under our control. And we need to stop the demand. without any demand the suppliers will have no reason to come here. So we need to arrest and incarcerate all the users we can. While we have them incarcerated we shold make sure they don not get any drugs while in prison. And we should provide them with counseling to alliveate the cause of the drug problem and we can train them into jobs that they can do once they are released and we should make that release conditional on their successful completion of their time AND their couneling and job training. save a life.