Francisco Javier is still on the loose. Macedo claimed that he was now virtually on his own, without his lieutenants and heading a heavily denuded operation. Jorge Arellano Félix and Pérez were picked up in a joint operation with the US. The US Drug Enforcement Administration had offered US$5m for information leading to their capture. Besides contending with pressure from the authorities on both sides of the border, the Arellano Félix gang is also locked in a battle with the Cartel de Sinaloa, headed by Ismael 'El Mayo' Zambrano. The gangs are fighting for control of the
lucrative business of supplying cocaine and marijuana to the west of the US.
Larry Holyfield, the director of the Mexican and Central American department of the US Drug Enforcement Administration, said that the Mexican drug gangs were the most dangerous in the drug business. He reckoned that the value of the trade in illegal drugs handled by Mexican gangs was US$65bn a year. Holyfield, speaking at the International Drug Enforcement Conference in Panama on 25 May, said that the Mexican gangs are the best organised, the most vicious and the strongest in the world. He said that they were stronger than the Colombian gangs and that they were so confident of their position they told
the police and other enforcement agencies that they could choose whether to take their pay-offs in money or lead. Holyfield, however, praised the role the Mexican government has played in clamping down on the drug trade.
Holyfield pussy-footed around the issue of whether the DEA issues instructions to the Mexican drug-enforcement agencies. He noted that DEA research had found that there was an increase in amphetamines being
produced in Mexico: Holyfield said that the Mexican authorities were responsible for investigating this. He also noted that more heroin from Colombia seemed to be coming through Central America to the US and Europe.
- The US-based Asociación Nacional de Funcionarios Latinos Electos y Designados claims that more Hispanic voters will vote in this November's elections in the US and that they are likely to have a decisive role in several states. The Asociación reckons that 6.9m Hispanics will vote in the 2004
election. This is around 1m more than voted in the 2000 election. If this many vote, they will account for just over 6% of the votes cast. The Hispanic vote is likely to be important in Florida and New Mexico. There are 838,000 Hispanic voters in Florida. There is a growing dispute in Florida over state officials' slowness on overhauling voter rolls: in 2000 these were widely agreed to be defective and deprived large numbers of likely-Democratic Party supporters of the right to vote. Over half of Florida's 67 countries still have to overhaul their voter lists. President George W Bush won Florida, and its 27 electoral college votes, by just 537 votes. Altogether there are 40m Hispanics in the US.
- The governor of Oklahoma, Brad Henry, commuted the death sentence on Osvaldo Torres on 13 May. He was scheduled to be executed on 18 May. This is the first time that the governor has commuted a death sentence. Mexican politicians and human-rights activists, from President Vicente Fox down, had lobbied hard for the death sentence to be commuted. Henry ruled that Torres will now face a life behind bars with no prospect of parole.
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