As the crowbar flies

Patrick Corcoran’s “crowbar” award (for the best gratuitous mention of narcotics in any news story mentioning Mexico) has, like the U.S. war on its favored chemical and agricultural lifestyle enhancers, found its way into the Central American republics.

From the Latin American Herald-Tribune (Caracas):

GUATEMALA CITY – A total of 3,000 barrels of chemicals used to produce synthetic drugs were seized and three suspects arrested in a raid in Guatemala, the National Civilian Police, or PNC, said.

The chemicals were found at a warehouse in San Jose Pinula, a city on the eastern outskirts of Guatemala City, the PNC said.

Officers and prosecutors searched the warehouse and found four vans loaded with chemicals used to manufacture synthetic drugs, the PNC said.

Two of the vans had Mexican tags and one had been reported missing several months ago.

Luis Reina Escobar, 53, Mario Uleu Alvizures, 60, and Isaias Alvizures Lorenzana, 24, all Guatemalan citizens, were arrested, the PNC said.

Guatemala is used by foreign drug cartels to move drugs from South America into Mexico and eventually the United States.

Los Zetas, considered Mexico’s most violent drug cartel, was blamed for the massacre of 27 peasants in May at a ranch in Peten province, which borders Mexico and Belize.

In the first three paragraphs we learn that 3000 barrels of … some kind of chemicals, that are used in some way, or COULD be used in some way, in the production of methamphetamines, were found in a warehouse in suburban Guatemala City.

Then, in the fourth paragraph, we learn that two of the four vehicles at the site — at least one of them stolen —  had Mexican plates… HEY… MEXICANS!

Never mind that the massacre was in another part of Guatemala, quite a distance from Guatemala City, and while one theory is that the Zetas were forcing locals out to protect a clandestine landing strip, more likely they were running off the subsistence farmers to clear the land for corporate palm-oil plantations.

Even if they are in Venezuela, Americans know that any news involving drugs anywhere in Latin America has to mention Mexican gangsters.