Police: Mexico's 'King of Heroin' Arrested
MEXICO CITY, Mexico
Jose Antonio Medina, nicknamed "Don Pepe," was arrested in the
western state of Michoacan on Wednesday and is being held for
prosecution, said Ramon Pequeno, head of the anti-narcotics
division of Mexico's federal police.
Medina, 36, ran a complex smuggling operation that hauled 440
pounds (200 kilograms) of heroin each month across the Mexican
border in Tijuana for La Familia drug cartel, Pequeno said.
The White House National Drug Threat Assessment says that while
heroin use is stable or decreasing in the U.S., the source of the
drug has shifted in recent years from Colombia -- where production
and purity are declining -- to Mexico, where powerful drug cartels
are gaining a foothold in the lucrative market.
Border Patrol agents seized 4.8 million pounds of narcotics at
border crossings last year, and heroin seizures saw the most
significant increase during that time, with a 316 percent jump over
2008.
Mexico and the U.S. are working together to counter a handful of
increasingly violent drug cartels that supply most of the illicit
drugs sold in the U.S. each year. The arrest came the day after top
U.S. Cabinet officials, led by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham
Clinton, visited Mexico to underscore their shared responsibility
for the country's drug-related violence.
Nearly 17,900 people have died in drug-related violence since
President Felipe Calderon launched an assault on cartels after
taking office in December 2006.
That violence continued Thursday in Ciudad Juarez, a border city
of 1.3 million just south of El Paso, where police on Thursday
found a decapitated man lying in a shopping center parking lot, his
head inside a black plastic bag nearby.
Killings such as this are believed to be the result of drug
cartels fighting among themselves for control of the drug trade, a
lucrative business estimated to bring $25 billion in cash into
Mexico each year.
Federal police in Mexico City said Thursday they had seized $1.7
million in small bills and arrested four men, two Colombians and
two Mexicans, for allegedly running financial operations for
cartels.