MEXICO NARCO-MUSEUM USED TO TRAIN ANTI-DRUG TROOPS

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Diamond-encrusted pistols, grenade launchers
and other prized personal possessions of Mexico's notorious drug mafia
fill a Mexico City "narco-museum" used to teach crime fighters about
their adversaries' culture and wiles, authorities said on Saturday.

The museum is used to teach rooky anti-drug troops about the drug
trade, including the identification of drugs and narcotics, production
and transportation techniques and weapons used against authorities, a
defense official told Reuters.

A pistol of gold, encrusted with diamonds and bearing the image of the
virgin of Guadalupe is just one in a series of favorite weapons of
Mexican drug-lords past and present.

The museum in the Defense Ministry's headquarters covers all aspects
of the drug trade, most notably everyday articles modified by
traffickers to smuggle drugs across the U.S.-Mexico border.

On display are everything from a bicycle -- its tires laden with
cocaine -- that had been ridden across the border on a daily basis by
a young boy paid by traffickers, to a hollow papaya used to transport
marijuana.

Also shown are photographs of women who were paid to surgically
implant cocaine and heroine in their breasts and buttocks so they
could stroll past border guards and sell their illegal wares in the
United States.

A getaway vehicle, complete with rear-facing rocket launcher and oil
slick dispenser, showed the lengths to which traffickers expected to
have to go to avoid capture.

Military tour guides told local media the museum's most notable
display is a shrine to Jesus Malverde, the supposed patron saint of
drug traffickers.

"Welcome to narco subculture," the guide told select local media in
a press tour on Friday.

The museum is divided in line with four themes of the war on drug
trafficking: destruction of narcotics; arms; interception of
shipments; and forms of avoiding capture.