Mexican cartels: the hidden hand behind Colombia’s drug trade – Community

A wide-brimmed hat, leather bandolier, rifle in hand: Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar used to dress up as a Mexican revolutionary hero for amusement.

But during his heyday as the world’s most wanted drug baron, he could not have imagined that Mexicans — then mainly smugglers for the Colombians — would end up running the empire he had constructed with so much bloodshed.

From being a mere stop on the smuggling route to the United States in the 1980s and 1990s, Mexican cartels have largely taken over the business, financing drug manufacturing in Colombia and controlling shipments to the United States via Central America.