The last shall be first…

It must have to do with the nuances of editorial style. The information in the first paragraph of the Notimex report on statements by Mexican Deputy Federal Attorney General for International Affairs, Jose Luis Santiago Vasconcelos, at a border security conference in Austin, Texas is buired down in paragraph six in the Associated Press version:

Here’s the AP version:

AUSTIN — Mexico is attempting to combat organized crime through judicial system reforms while working with the U.S. to try to curb a security crisis on the border, a Mexican deputy attorney general said Wednesday.

Mexico’s leaders are looking to establish public, oral trials and new roles for judges along with protection of crime victims, Jose Luis Santiago Vasconcelos, deputy federal attorney general for international affairs, told a border security conference in Austin.

“These are much-needed tools to combat organized crime, and this is what we are debating in Mexico,” he said in Spanish, using an English interpreter. “The goal is to go after the financing of this organized crime.”

He told of one suspected criminal who spent $190 million in Las Vegas, including $14 million in one night.

“This is the enemy that Mexico is confronting with all of its resources,” Vasconcelos said. The country is spending $3.9 billion a year to fight organized crime, he said.

Money and weapons flowing from the United States fuel drug trafficking and organized crime in Mexico, to the tune of some $10 billion per year, he said.

The Notimex version is here.

And I suspect the weaponry is being bought at wholesale, not retail, prices. How else can you explain how a couple of Sinaloa farmboys were driving around with one of these in their pickup? (Photo: Noroeste de Sinaloa):

That’s a Barrett 50 mm. “rifle” — that, in the words of a gun enthusiast I interviewed about a manufacturer of these weapons who was moving to Alpine, Texas said, “will turn an elk into fajitas at half a mile.” They’ll also take out a freight train. The list of manufacturers doesn’t include anyone in Mexico.. They retail for about $7000 US, more than most rural families in Sinaloa earn in a good year.

And… maybe some training too?  The State Department denies it.