Small Wars Journal

An Unexpected Place for Lessons to Fight Mexico’s Mafia: Italy

Fri, 12/05/2014 - 5:06am

An Unexpected Place for Lessons to Fight Mexico’s Mafia: Italy by Roberto Saviano, Reuters

At this moment, the fiercest, most powerful criminal organizations in the world are located in Mexico. Recent events should leave no one with any doubts.

On Sept. 26, 43 trainee teachers in the southwestern city of Iguala were abducted by the police and, according to the government, were most likely murdered by drug traffickers. Their deaths, which are the latest in a long list of bloody gang-related murders, sparked widespread riots in Mexico City. According to Amnesty International, 136,100 people were killed by Mexican cartels between December 2006 and May 2014 alone.

So how is Mexico to deal with this formidable problem? Perhaps it could look to Italy for lessons on how a deeply entrenched mafia…

Read on.

Categories: El Centro