Mexican Drug Informants Import Violence to US

The Obama administration and state governments are spending billions to keep Mexico's escalating drug war from spilling over the border. But the feds fighting trafficking have also relied on Mexican cartel members for intelligence—and that, says the Washington Post, has unleashed gangland-style violence in American cities. Drug kingpins living in the US, often with connections to American law enforcement, are both victims of violence and killers themselves.

In one case, a trafficker from the deadly Juarez cartel was set up with a US visa and lived in a $365,000 house in El Paso with his wife and children before he was killed execution-style on his front lawn. Texas police spoke to a possible informer recommended by the feds—but he turned out to have ordered the killing, which was carried out by American teens. "So this is how these people end up in our country," says a detective. "We bring them here."
(More Mexican drug war stories.)