Mexican Government and US DEA in Bed with Mexican Drug Cartels

Not too surprising, but still important to have a journalist come out and say this:

ANABEL HERNÁNDEZ: What I found in official documents and by testimonies is that the Secretary of Public Security in Mexico, General García Luna, was the most powerful chief of police and the government of Felipe Calderón, he was really involved with a drug cartel, with the Sinaloa Cartel. He was on the payroll as the same as the most important chief of police of the federal police. So these guys, not just protect the to the Sinaloa Cartel, they also help them to traffic drugs and money in the most important airports in Mexico.

AMY GOODMAN: You name a number of prominent government officials. Talk about who they are.

ANABEL HERNÁNDEZ: I’m talking about General García Luna. I’m also put the names of other presidents, before–

AMY GOODMAN: Like?

ANABEL HERNÁNDEZ: Felipe Calderón. What I found is since the case of the ‘60s until the last day of the government of Ernesto Zedillo, who the last president that came from the party, PRI, all that government used to protect all the cartels. The drug cartels in Mexico as you know is not new. It’s a very old story—that government made them very powerful.

AMY GOODMAN: What does it mean when the U.S. government gives millions to the Mexican government? You say the Mexican government is for the war and drugs, and you say the Mexican government is not fighting against the drugs, but as part of the drug cartels and supporting them?

ANABEL HERNÁNDEZ: What I discovered in my investigation is that much of that money, much of that technology, much of that equipment now is in the hands of the drug cartels.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: The amazing story is, here you have Felipe Calderón launching this war that has led to 80,000 deaths in Mexico, and yet you’re saying that his main federal police chief was involved with one of the cartels. What has been the reaction in Mexico among the justice officials or authorities to some of your revelations?

ANABEL HERNÁNDEZ: When I published his book, I really was able to put many of the proofs in the book. It was published in Spanish. Because I of course know that it maybe could be very difficult for the people to understand and believe, what it is really happening. So I published it, the government didn’t say anything. Anything. They just kept quiet. They’re still protecting to the Sinaloa Cartels. But now I think the society in Mexico really knows that the bloody war, it was just a sham, it was fake, it wasn’t true. The federal government didn’t want to fight against the drug cartels. The federal government choose to fight against some cartels—enemies of the Sinaloa Cartels—and protect them.

AMY GOODMAN: I shake as you speak, Anabel Hernández, because Mexico is one of the dangerous countries for journalists to work again, especially Mexican journalists. I want to talk about your safety. But first, your father was a journalist? Can you talk about what happened to him?

ANABEL HERNÁNDEZ: My father represents everything for me. He was kidnapped and murdered in December 2000. He was a businessman. He was not a journalist. He was just a businessman. In that year, many businessmen were kidnapped by little gangs just for money. He was murdered. When we cried for justice from the police, the chief of police said, well, if you want justice, if you want that we investigate, you have to pay. Of course, we chose not to pay. My family choose not pay because you can’t buy the justice. So until now, I don’t know who killed my father. I learned that corruption hurts.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: He was killed in Mexico City?

ANABEL HERNÁNDEZ: Yes, he was kidnapped in Mexico City and his body was found in a Mexican state, it’s a very near place to Mexico City.

AMY GOODMAN: What about you? You travel with two bodyguards?

ANABEL HERNÁNDEZ: Well, yes. Since I published this book in December of2010, I have received death threats. Not from the head of the Sinaloa cartels, or the other cartels, the threats that I received came from the chief of police, General García Luna.

 (snip)

AMY GOODMAN: What is the role of the DEA, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the U.S. agency in Mexico?

ANABEL HERNÁNDEZ: I am now investigating that because I really cannot believe how they use government of the Drug Enforcement Administration, really didn’t saw what is happening in Mexico. And I found one document in 2011 in one court of Chicago that really proves that the Drug Enforcement Administration has a connection with the Sinaloa Cartel.

Amy Goodman, good gatekeeper that she is, failed to follow up on this important piece of information...

UPDATE Feb 2014 from "Business Insider"--

An investigation by El Universal found that between the years 2000 and 2012, the U.S. government had an arrangement with Mexico's Sinaloa drug cartel that allowed the organization to smuggle billions of dollars of drugs while Sinaloa provided information on rival cartels.
Sinaloa, led by Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, supplies 80% of the drugs entering the Chicago area and has a presence in cities across the U.S.
There have long been allegations that Guzman, considered to be "the world’s most powerful drug trafficker," coordinates with American authorities.
But the El Universal investigation is the first to publish court documents that include corroborating testimony from a DEA agent and a Justice Department official.