Not content to remain firmly entrenched in their designated territories, Mexican drug gangs are making a large push to gain control of the increasingly lucrative tourist resort of Acapulco. Long controlled by the Sinaloa drug cartel, recent attempts by the Gulf cartel to infiltrate the resort town in an attempt to acquire the city’s drug trafficking routes, nearby marijuana and poppy production industries, and the ever robust local trade in cocaine and other drugs has produced dangerous and deadly encounters. While southern cities are largely free of the violence that has plagued Mexico border towns, drug cartels are pushing south to claim additional territory and secure coastal towns, which are imperative to the free flow of illegal narcotics from Colombia . Corruptible police forces have merely added to the war-like feel engulfing several Mexican coastal cities. However, although physical danger remains the greatest threat Acapulco, negative economic repercussions are sure to be felt as well, as the Mexican service sector will undoubtedly be affected by decreasing tourist revenue.

Perhaps the largest obstacle confronting the Mexican government is the endemic and systemic corruption and criminality that have infested branches of the federal and state security apparatuses. Both the Gulf and Sinaloa cartels have former and current members of the Mexican state and federal police forces on their payrolls, necessitating a complete revamping of the nation’s security services. The Gulf cartel’s hired mercenaries, known as Zetas, are former anti-narcotics commandos and are particularly active in Nuevo Laredo, the Gulf Cartel’s strategic headquarters . The Sinaloa cartel has sought the assistance of agents from the Federal Investigative Agency (AFI), which was designed nearly four years ago to combat growing organized crime syndicates and curtail the escalating levels of police corruption . Both groups are becoming the most brutal and effective enforcers for both the Gulf and Sinaloa cartels. To that, The Dallas Morning News recently revealed a 216-page federal court file describing how the Sinaloa drug cartel in 2005 bought police protection at three levels of government.