| | |  News Around the Republic of Mexico 
Drug Traffickers Tighten U.S. Grip, Report Says
 Reuters
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March 26, 2010
| | Police officers surround Jose Antonio Medina, who is suspected of drug crimes, in Mexico City. (Associated Press) | |
Mexico - Mexican cartels, the biggest source of illegal drugs to the United States, have increased the flow of heroin, marijuana and methamphetamines into the country and consolidated their power in the past year, the Justice Department said Thursday.
Mexican traffickers grew especially strong in some eastern U.S. markets as Colombian drug rings weakened, according to a report by the department's National Drug Intelligence Center.
The center estimated the U.S. economic cost of trafficking and abuse of drugs at $215 billion annually and said Mexico continues to pose the greatest drug-trafficking threat to the United States.
The report says that Mexican cartels are the only drug traffickers operating in every region of the United States, and they have increasingly joined forces with American street and prison gangs.
The United States is deeply involved in Mexico's battle against drug gangs, pledging $1.4 billion over three years to fighting the cartels that ship $40 billion worth of illegal drugs north each year.
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