One in three members of Mexican drug gangs is a former soldier, the Mexican daily El Universal reported Friday, citing Defence Minister Guillermo Galvan, according to dpa. According to the report, Galvan said at a private meeting with leftist legislators that the Mexican Armed Forces suffer some 20,000 desertions every year, and that one third of the 500,000 Mexicans involved in the drug trade have been in the military. When asked about by Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa, the Defence Ministry declined to confirm or deny the report. The presence of deserters from the Armed Forces in Mexico's drug cartels has been well-known for years, although there are no precise official figures on the issue. In the 1990s, members of an elite group in the Army deserted to create the group of hired killers called Los Zetas, which was born as the armed wing of the Gulf Cartel and currently acts as a dangerous independent gang dedicated to organized crime.
