Ex-rivals’ merge to ‘megacartel’ intensifies brutality in Mexico From: dallasnews.com

Until recently, the map showing control of key drug cartel hot spots in Mexico was something like the red states and the blue states in the U.S. Now, everything is up for grabs as three powerful wings of once rival trafficking groups fuse into a “megacartel,” unleashing an unprecedented blood bath, according to U.S. officials and analysts.

Hit men for the paramilitary Zetas based along the Mexico-Texas border appear to have cut a deal with both the Beltrán Leyva family in the northern state of Sinaloa and Vicente Carrillo Fuentes in Ciudad Juárez to work as paid mercenaries.

Underscoring the Zetas’ role is their trademark brutality in an ongoing war that’s claimed more than 1,600 lives so far this year, including more than 450 in Ciudad Juárez, across the border from El Paso. Overall, the killings are up nearly 30 percent over a year ago.”*

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