Mexico's prosecutor calls on U.S., Venezuela to better combat arms, drug trafficking

By Mark Stevenson
ASSOCIATED PRESS
7:39 p.m. August 3, 2006

MEXICO CITY – Mexico's top organized crime prosecutor called on U.S. officials Thursday to do more to halt illegal weapons trafficking to help Mexico stem a wave of bloody, drug-fueled violence.

Jose Luis Santiago Vasconcelos said the rising brutality of recent drug executions was due to hit men taking over cartels after their bosses were arrested.

“It's foreseeable that this type of violence will continue like this,” Santiago Vasconcelos told a small group of foreign reporters, “because the Mexican government will never make any deals” with drug gangs.

The Gulf and Tijuana gangs have formed an alliance, and are fighting a group led by Joaquin Guzman and Ismael Zambada – Mexico's two most-wanted drug lords – and several others.

The two alliances have begun using heavier weapons, like rocket-propelled grenades, Santiago Vasconcelos said. Most of those weapons come from the United States, and he called on Washington to do more to halt their flow south.