Mexican cartels "working with Afghan drug lords"

Authorities in Mexico have discovered that the country's powerful drug organizations, especially the Sinaloa cartel, are working with narcotics traffickers in Afghanistan to help them replenish supplies that are destined for the United States and the European Union, a Mexico City newspaper reported on Tuesday.

Quoting Edgardo Buscaglia, a top government researcher at the Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico (ITAM), El Universal said that the cartels have set up ghost companies with the help of Turkish and Indian smugglers in Afghanistan to help them in the heroin trade.

"The Mexican organizations have penetrated the Turkish market through contacts established principally with firms and companies that are dedicated to illegal activities, where they also serve as minor stockholders," said Buscaglia, a Mexican government investigator.

In his New Year's Day address, President Felipe Calderón called on all Mexicans to help in the government's ongoing fight in the drug war. "I can assure you that we are on the right road and we are going to destroy those criminals so we can build a new Mexico on a foundation of peace - one where no one lives in terror," he said on Sunday.

The government's death toll for drug-related crimes for 2010 was 12,456. Since Calderón took office in December 2006 and declared a war on the cartels, there have been 30,196 drug-related victims.

Also on Sunday, a letter purportedly signed by the La Familia drug cartel announcing a one-month truce was circulated in the western state of Michoacán.

In the letter, which was distributed by email and delivered by regular mail, the cartel said it was calling the truce to demonstrate that it is "not responsible for the crime" that the authorities have been blaming them for.