MEXICAN DRUG CARTELS LEAVE A BLOODY TRAIL ON YOUTUBE

MEXICO CITY -- Bloody bodies -- slumped at steering wheels, stacked
in pickup trucks, crumpled on sidewalks -- clog nearly every frame of
the music video that shook Mexico's criminal underworld.

Posted on YouTube and countless Mexican Web sites last year, the
video opens with blaring horns and accordions. Valentin Elizalde, a
singer known as the "Golden Rooster," croons over images of an
open-mouthed shooting victim. "I'm singing this song to all my
enemies," he belts out.

Elizalde's narcocorrido, or drug trafficker's ballad, sparked what is
believed to be an unprecedented cyberspace drug war. Chat rooms
filled with accusations that he was promoting the Sinaloa cartel and
mocking its rival, the Gulf cartel. Drug lords flooded the Internet
with images of beheadings, execution-style shootings and torture.

Within months, Elizalde was dead, shot 20 times after a November
concert. His enemies exacted their final revenge by posting a video
of his autopsy, the camera panning from Elizalde's personalized
cowboy boots to his bloodied naked body.

Elizalde's narco-ballad video and its aftermath highlight a new surge
of Internet activity by Mexican drug cartels, whose mastery of
technology gives them a huge advantage over law enforcement agencies.
Following the model of terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda, the cartels
have discovered the Web as a powerful means of transmitting threats,
recruiting members and glorifying the narco-trafficker lifestyle of
big money, big guns and big thrills.

"It's out of control," Victor Clark, a Tijuana-based drug expert,
said in an interview.

Drug raids in Mexico now routinely net cameras, computers and
intricate computerized surveillance systems along with the usual
piles of cash, cocaine and weapons. Hit men are just as likely to
pack video cameras as "goat's horns" -- the Mexican drug world's
nickname for AK-47 assault rifles.

Mexican police have been slow to recognize the Internet as a font of
clues, critics say, a mistake that has increased the ability of the
cartels to work in the open.

"Imagine, if you're a policeman, you can find gold here on these Web
sites," said Alejandro Paez Varela, an editor at the Mexican magazine
Dia Siete who tracks drug gangs' use of the Internet. "It's a shame.
Everything's here: names, places. They even say who they are going to kill."

The videos, almost unheard-of a year ago, now show up with disturbing
regularity. Last Monday, Mexican newspaper Web sites published
portions of a video of a supposed Gulf cartel hit man being
questioned by an off-screen interrogator about the February murders
of five police officers in Acapulco.

The man wears nothing but underwear. A large "Z" is scrawled in thick
ink on his chest, along with the words "Welcome, killers of women and
children." The Z is a symbol of the Zetas, the Gulf cartel's
notorious hit squad, which was started by former Mexican army special
forces officers.

The full version of the video shows assassins decapitating the man by
slowing twisting a wire through his neck. It ends with a written
threat: "Lazcano, you're next" -- an apparent reference to Heriberto
Lazcano, alleged chief of the Zetas.

Viewer comments on the video sites provide some of the possible clues
police could be investigating, Clark said. On one recent evening,
viewers had posted what appeared to be death threats on a YouTube
page showing a bloody narcocorrido video.

"You have few days left, Miguel Trevino," wrote a user named "kslnrv."

"The Internet has turned into a toy for Mexican organized crime,"
Clark said. "It's a toy, a toy to have fun with, a toy to scare people."

While terrorists have turned to the Internet to communicate with
other terrorists, the Mexican cartels appear to be using cyberspace
mostly to taunt and threaten enemies. The videos can be explicit or
cryptic. Inserting code words is part of the game for drug dealers
who delight in leaving riddles to be unscrambled by their rivals and
police officers.

Mexican researchers are beginning to examine these Internet postings
to monitor who is up and who is down in the drug wars. Paez Varela is
tracking an increase in videos posted by the Sinaloa cartel, many of
which tout the supposed virtues of its leader, Joaquin "Chapo" Guzman.

Guzman, who escaped from a high-security Mexican prison in 2001, and
his backers appear to be posting more videos of his hit men carrying
out executions in parts of Mexico once thought to be under control of
the Gulf cartel.

"What Chapo Guzman is saying is that his militant arm is strong, not
just in Sinaloa, but in Veracruz, the state of Tamaulipas and the
state of Tabasco," Paez Varela said. "It's like an advertisement."

But the other side is advertising, too, even though its leader, Osiel
Cardenas, was recently extradited to the United States. A video
homage to Cardenas has proliferated on the Web, boasting that he is
still powerful.

"With an order from the boss, more heads will roll," an unknown
performer sings. As the singer wails, the screen fills with an image
of a blood-smeared floor and four heads severed from their bodies. It
ends with a pistol shot into the forehead of a supposed gang member
and a gushing wound.

"Mexican law enforcement is ill-equipped to deal with this," Andrew
Teekell, an analyst at Stratfor, a private intelligence firm based in
Texas, said in an interview. "In the U.S., posting videos like that
would be plain crazy -- U.S. law enforcement has guys who do nothing
but surf the Internet. But in Mexico, they can get away with it. It
shows these cartels are untouchable."

Mexico's federal police agency has a cybercrimes unit, but it has
produced few important drug busts. In the meantime, most local police
forces pay little attention to the Internet, Clark said. A federal
police spokesman declined to discuss ongoing investigations, but said
a concerted effort is now being made to track drug gangs on the Internet.

"The police are not taking what narcos post on the Internet
seriously," Clark said. "It's a mistake. In terms of investigations,
you have to take advantage of all available information."

YouTube, which appears to be the most popular destination for the
cartels' videos, removes those flagged by users as objectionable. But
the violent clips frequently reappear on the site shortly after being
removed. Online comment sections attached to videos disappear, but
fill up again when the videos return. The online discussions, in
Spanish, are often filled with threats, overt and veiled, as well as
streams of profanities.

Mexican drug dealers have for years commissioned composers to write
songs in their honor. Now, the Internet is suddenly turning some of
them into superstars. None is bigger than Valentin Elizalde.

When he was alive, he never had a best-selling album. But less than
four months after his murder and half a year after "To My Enemies"
became an Internet hit, Elizalde made it big. On March 3, when
Billboard came out with its list of best-selling Latin albums in the
United States, Elizalde occupied the top two spots.