Factory taken over by Mexican cartel, investors charge

According to the Courthouse News Service, an investment group has charged in a fraud complaint filed in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California on May 10 that a furniture plant in Reynosa, Mexico that they bought from Thermo Fisher Scientific was controlled by the Gulf Cartel and that Thermo Fisher concealed that fact from them.
The plaintiffs are OpenGate Capital Group (which claims to do "cross border acquisitions" on its home page) and three Delaware businesses with RoundRock in their name. The plaintiffs allege that Thermo Fisher was desperate to unload the plant.

The complaint alleges that the Gulf Cartel stored a truck trailer of unknown cargo on the property and fled to the property as a refuge during gun battles.

True or not, the claim is sadly believable.

Crime scholar writes drug trafficking is a business and violence is a strategy, in Washington Post

"Because trafficking is a business and fighting is a business strategy, drug cartels chose to fight whenever war brings more benefits than costs," writes Viridiana Rios in a Washington Post op-ed, Sunday, April 14, 2013. "Traffickers pick their wars. Battling is a strategic choice for cartels -- and they frequently choose peace." But right now "war pays in Mexico." The strategy is take out the illegal profits, she argues. Can one be devised short of legalization?

The U.S. and Mexico "may have been fighting the wrong war because we do not know who the enemy is," she writes. Target not the organizations but the violence. "A war against drug organizations is an endless war." Right now, fighting in Mexico "makes business sense." In Mexico, "only 6 percent of all homicides produce a trial and judgment."Our effort "must be a war to make sure those who kill face consequences."

She concludes, "A war against impunity can be won. A war against drugs cannot."