MEXICO CITY — Mexico’s government on Monday offered $2 million for information leading to each arrest of 24 top drug lords in a public challenge to the cartels’ violent grip on the country.
The list indicated that drug gangs have splintered into six main cartels under pressure from the U.S. and Mexican governments. The two most powerful gangs — the Pacific and Gulf cartels — suffered fractures that have given rise to new cartels, according to the list published by the attorney general’s office.
The list offers 30 million pesos, or $2 million,in rewards for 24 top members of the cartels and 15 million pesos, or $1 million, for 13 of their lieutenants.
Mexico’s drug violence has killed more than 9,000 people since President Felipe Calderon took office in December 2006 as gangs battle for territory and fight off a government crackdown.
Some of that violence is spilling over into the United States, especially the Southwest, where kidnaps and killings are on the rise.
The rewards are the largest Mexico has ever offered for top drug lords, said Ricardo Najera, a spokesman for the attorney general’s office. Some leaders, such as suspected Pacific cartel leaders Joaquin Guzman and Ismael Zambada, are targeted by $5 million rewards from the U.S.
The new list appeared to be the first offering rewards for all the most-wanted cartel members at once. The government could be trying to signal its determination to take on the cartels at the same time, rather than one or two at a time as past administrations have done, said Andrew Selee, director of the Wilson Center’s Mexico Institute in Washington.
“It tells you a little bit about Calderon’s thinking,” Selee said. “He really sees this as something he wants to eradicate. He’s willing to take them all on as a unit.”
Calderon’s government has attributed cartels’ fractures to the military crackdown, saying the arrest of drug kingpins has set off internal battles that have led to a surge in violence.
The effort sends a message days before a visit from U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and a month before President Barack Obama visits.
Mexican officials “have been quite defensive about all the talk about Mexico’s being a failed state and that the cartels are controlling more and more territory,” said George Grayson, a Mexico expert at the College of William & Mary in Virginia.
