[From article]
The Zetas cartel, with its strongholds along the US-Mexico border, was among the first to change the business model from merely production and transport of drugs to migrant smuggling and controlling territory through terror. Though drugs still top their list, the Zetas likely make as much from kidnapping and extortion, said Samuel Logan, director of the Southern Pulse security consulting firm.
“I’ve never looked at them as drug-trafficking organizations,” Logan said of Mexico’s cartels. “They’re multinational corporations that will react to market pressures and do what they have to do to stay in business.”
[. . .]
Alonso Ancira, president of the National Chamber of Iron and Steel, recently told local journalists that he estimated drug cartels earned $1 billion in profits from selling iron ore in 2013.
[. . .]
the cartel was trying to infiltrate all levels of society. By the time La Familia morphed into the Knights Templar in 2010, it seemed to control the entire state, including politicians and police who failed to act.
[. . .]
The government also has arrested or killed much of the cartel’s leadership, but they did the same to La Familia, only to see the cartel remake itself into something even more menacing.
http://nypost.com/2014/03/17/mexican-drug-cartel-moves-from-meth-to-iron-ore-mining/
Mexican drug cartel moves from meth to iron ore mining
By Associated Press
March 17, 2014 | 11:55am
New York Post
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