GUNS, GOLD AND COCAINE: 'NARCO BLING' OF DRUG GANGS ON SHOW IN MEXICO

Mexican drug traffickers not only shoot with their pistols, they make
statements with them too. Take the Colt 45 that one hitman
embellished with rubies and emeralds in the shape of a crown, or the
inscription on the firearm of a high-ranking rival proclaiming:
"Better to die on your feet than live on your knees." A third
trafficker gold-plated his weapon and set 221 diamonds on its handle.

All three weapons now lie together in display cases alongside other
examples of "narco bling" at the drug trafficking museum in Mexico City.

"This room has examples of the culture of people who traffic drugs;
it can be a little eccentric," said Captain Claudio Montane, a guide
at the military museum, whose exhibits include bulletproof clothes
and a shrine to the popular folklore hero Jesus Malverde, a bandit
turned "narco saint". The gallery also contains a wooden door carved
with a smuggler ready for battle, and a photograph of a trafficker's
baby posed in front of a dozen rifles.

The museum, first opened in 1985 and repeatedly expanded, has taken
on added resonance in a country in the grip of some of the worst
drugs-related violence in the western hemisphere.

Mexico's cartels control most of the Colombian-grown cocaine heading
to the US. They also oversee local production of methamphetamines,
cannabis and heroin, as well as supply in a growing domestic market.
A recent report estimated that 500,000 Mexicans are directly
involved. Last year, deaths from drugs-related crime more than
doubled to a record 5,600.

The museum is used as an education tool for officers being sent off
to face the traffickers. Its first rooms trace drug culture in
Mexico, from the religious use of hallucinogenic cacti to the rise of
some of the most powerful criminal organisations in the world.

The museum evokes the lower echelons of the industry with a lifesize
recreation of a mountainside camp where a gun-toting mannequin guards
fields of opium poppies. Another display exhibits letters written by
growers threatening or pleading with the military to leave their crops alone.

A photograph shows a huge banner spread out across a remote sierra to
be read from the air: "Sirs, we know it's your job but we want to negotiate."

Much is made of the satellite communications technology traffickers
use in transporting drugs. But what catches the visitor's eye is the
traffickers' creativity. A frame of a picture of the Virgin of
Guadalupe is stuffed with cocaine, as are a couple of dead
armadillos. "They can be very ingenious," said Montane.

Demand is high for museum tours. The numbers of soldiers involved in
anti-drug operations has grown to an estimated 25,000 since December
2006 when Mexico's president, Felipe Calderon, launched an offensive
to quell a turf war between rival cartels which has, so far, had the
opposite effect.

The aim of the museum is not to detail the war as much as understand
its roots, says Montane: "The most effective way of combating narco
trafficking is to understand it better."