Mexican President Felipe Calderon is in Washington on Wednesday for an official state visit. His battle against the violent drug cartels is high on the agenda.
Calderon has deployed 45,000 federal troops and police to combat the drug gangs. Yet in the midst of this crackdown, the Sinaloa cartel — the largest, oldest and richest in Mexico — appears to be flourishing.
An NPR News investigation has found strong evidence of collusion between elements of the Mexican army and the Sinaloa cartel in the violent border city of Juarez.
Dozens of interviews with current and former law enforcement agents, organized crime experts, elected representatives, and victims of violence suggest that the Sinaloans depend on bribes to top government officials to help their leader, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, elude capture, expand his empire and keep his operatives out of jail.
"I work in the police and because of this I know the government is protecting Chapo Guzman. It's hitting all the cartels but Chapo," said Luis Arturo Perez Torres, 25, until recently a federal police officer stationed in a suburb of Mexico City.
Guzman is the world's most wanted drug lord. His home base is the Pacific coastal state of Sinaloa, known as Mexico's "Sicily." It's the premier narco-state, with a long coastline for smuggling cocaine from South America, and rugged mountains to hide cannabis crops.
Manuel Clouthier, a congressman from Sinaloa state and a member of Calderon's political party, is deeply frustrated by his country's drug war. He says drug-related murders average 200 a month in his state.
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