A crackdown on cartels

Published January 27, 2007

For more than three years, Osiel Cardenas Guillen ran his drug cartel from a maximum-security cell in Mexico, making a mockery of the Mexican prison system and thumbing his nose at U.S. prosecutors who wanted him to stand trial here. In May, Cardenas openly sponsored a Day of the Child party in the border town of Reynosa, complete with truckloads of toys tagged with notes saying they were from the jailbird Cardenas. A paid ad in the next day's paper read, "Osiel makes thousands of children happy."

This week, Mexican authorities handed him over, along with three other kingpins and another 11 drug-related criminals wanted for crimes in the U.S. The move severs ties between incarcerated drug lords and their lieutenants on the outside. It also sets them up for tougher sentences, including forfeiture of millions of dollars gained from drug trafficking. Still better, it sends a message to Mexico's drug dealers and its citizens: There's a new sheriff in town.