Mexico Tries to Show Resolve With Big Drug Seizure

By JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr.
Published: November 29, 2007
 
MANZANILLO, Mexico, Nov. 28 — Mexico tried to send a pointed message to the world on Wednesday that it took its fight against drug trafficking seriously. Officials burned one of the largest shipments of narcotics ever seized, sending about 23 tons of cocaine into the tropical sky in a black plume.

Drugs from Colombia arrived in October in Manzanillo.

The shipment, seized on Oct. 31 in this sleepy Pacific port, was destroyed as the United States Congress considered a plan to give Mexico $1 billion in aid over the next two years to help curb drug trafficking.
 
The measure is part of an accord between the countries under which the Bush administration promises to increase efforts to stop the flow of arms and cash southward.
 
“Mexico is doing its part,” the attorney general, Eduardo Medina Mora, said as the contraband blazed. “We have put in all the resources within reach of the Mexican state. We have lost comrades. We have made an enormous effort, and the Mexican part of this is certain. Now we need the United States to keep its promise.”
 
Since being sworn in almost a year ago, President Felipe Calderón has taken a hard line against traffickers. Mexico has extradited more than 20 ranking cartel members to the United States to stand trial and has sent more than 10,000 troops and federal agents to areas that drug gangs once controlled.
 
Law enforcement has also stepped up seizures at ports like Manzanillo. The cocaine powder, with a street value of $2.7 billion, United States law enforcement estimated, was found in containers on a ship that arrived in late October from Colombia. The seizure was made three weeks after agents seized 11 tons in Tamaulipas. All told, the government says it has seized about 45 tons of cocaine this year.
 
One reason is that the United States and Mexico are sharing more intelligence on drug shipments than in the past. The chief of operations for the Drug Enforcement Administration, Michael A. Braun, said American agents had a role in finding the shipment here, the largest on record in the Americas.