COLUMBUS, N.M. — This dusty little border town with almost no visible means of support has been seeing something of a boom in the past year: brand-new Lincoln Navigators and Cadillac Escalades with flashy wheel rims parked just off the bleak main drag.
Homes sell quickly, sometimes for cash.
The source of this sudden wealth? An influx of Mexican drug smugglers, investigators say.
The smugglers are fleeing the Mexican army’s occupation of the town of Palomas, on the other side of the U.S.-Mexico border fence, and settling in Columbus, where there has been a law enforcement vacuum. The four-man police force in Columbus has turned over seven times in three years because of scandal or apathy.
“We know the names of the people,” said Luna County Sheriff Raymond Cobos, who is based in Deming, 35 miles away.
“I know that if I were a person involved in criminal activity, whether it’s drug-related, human-smuggling-related, I certainly would welcome the absence of police.”
So far, Columbus has been spared any violence, even though the sheriff’s investigators estimate 10 percent of the population of 2,000 might be involved in illegal activity.
