On the state and the enemies from within – Natalie Kitroeff and Ronen Bergman in NYT:

‘It is perhaps Mexico’s most notorious cold case — 43 college students shot at by the police, forced into patrol cars, handed over to a drug cartel and never seen again.
The mystery has haunted the nation for nearly a decade. How could a relatively unknown gang pull off one of the worst atrocities in Mexico’s recent history, with the help of the police and the military watching the mass abduction unfold in real time? A vast trove of about 23,000 unpublished text messages, witness testimony and investigative files obtained by The New York Times point to an answer: Just about every arm of government in that part of southern Mexico had been secretly working for the criminal group for months, putting the machinery of the state in the cartel’s hands and flattening any obstacle that got in its way.
The police commanders whose officers snatched many of the students that night in 2014 had been taking direct orders from the drug traffickers, the text messages show. One of the commanders gave guns to cartel members, while another hunted down their rivals on command.’

(…)

‘The text messages may also help answer another open question in the case: Why did Guerreros Unidos execute a group of 43 students who were training to be teachers and had nothing to do with organized crime? In the months and weeks before the abduction, the wiretaps show, the cartel had grown increasingly paranoid, beset by deadly infighting and scrambling to defend its territory as rivals pushed in.
So, when dozens of young men swept into the city of Iguala on passenger buses — not unlike the ones the cartel used to smuggle drugs into the United States — the traffickers mistook their convoy for an intrusion by enemies and gave the order to attack, prosecutors now say.
Nine years after the students vanished, no one has been convicted of the crime, turning the case into a symbol of a broken system that cannot solve even the most brazen acts of brutality. The previous government was accused of orchestrating a sweeping cover-up to hide the involvement of federal forces in the abduction, especially the all-powerful military.
Now the investigation is at a critical juncture. Under President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the authorities have ordered the arrest of 20 Mexican soldiers in connection with the kidnappings, including more than a dozen in June. The unpublished wiretaps have been crucial to building the case.’

(…)

‘Minutes after the students left the bus station, the police chased them down, opened fire and hauled them away. Multiple cartel members have testified that the victims were turned over to the criminal group, which killed them and disposed of their bodies.
The army received constant updates about the crime as it happened. Soldiers were on the streets and a local battalion even had an informant embedded with the students, investigations have shown.
Army intelligence officials were also listening. They were spying on a cartel boss and a police commander as they discussed where to take some of the students that night, military documents show.
And days after the attack, the army knew the location of two suspects talking about releasing students who, investigators say, may have still been alive.
How the military knew this is now clearer — it was using a powerful spy tool manufactured in Israel, known as Pegasus, to surveil the gang’s members, an investigator told The Times.’

(…)

‘“You tell yourself, ‘I know I’m committing a crime,’” a police officer said, according to a previously unpublished transcript of his interrogation by law enforcement. But it was impossible to resist regular $50 payments, he said.
“You say, ‘I’m not going to take it, so I don’t get myself into trouble,’ but then you say, ‘No, wait,’” he said.
When cartel members needed to pass through a checkpoint, move weapons or ambush their rivals, they turned to the police.
“Don’t worry, cousin,” a police commander told a cartel member in one message, “you know that we are 1,000 percent with you here.”’ (…)

‘The ties between the cartel and the authorities were still strong.
One of the traffickers involved in the kidnapping talked about how he had just “gotten drunk with the soldiers” at a local restaurant, the wiretaps show. A money manager for the cartel said he had made friends with a federal police commander. A city councilman talked about moving drugs to the United States.
One night, the wife of a jailed boss lost track of a shipment of drugs on its way to the United States. Thinking the smuggler might have made off with the stash, she asked an associate to give him a warning.
“Doesn’t the driver know what happened to the 43,” she said, referring to the abducted students. “I’m sure he doesn’t want to be number 44.”’

Read the article here.

Of course, Pegasus. What else?

The deadly marriage between state and organized crime is common in many countries. From Russia to Italy, and no country is immune to it, not even Iceland. But not in many cases this affair is conducted so open and shameless as in Mexico.

The disaster that is called the war on drugs is also responsible for this deadly affair. Legalization is not a panacea, but the current situation makes organized crime an excellent opportunity for ambitious men and women.

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