Reynosa cartel leader found guilty

AP/KGBT4:

A federal jury in McAllen today convicted a retired Mexican police commander of helping run a drug cartel's smuggling operation.

Carlos Landin Martinez was convicted on nine counts of drug trafficking, conspiracy and money laundering from 2005 to 2007.

Sentencing is April 17th. Each count could come with a minimum ten-year sentence.

Defense attorney Oscar Alvarez says Landin doesn't feel the evidence was there to convict him, but he accepts the verdict and is weighing his options.

His eldest daughter, Sandra Landin of Reynosa, Mexico, says: "He's the best father and the best grandfather."

Landin, who's 52, had been a commander in the Tamaulipas, Mexico, state police until his retirement about nine years ago.

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It is nice to know his kids like him. This case demonstrates a lot about what has been wrong with Mexico before Calderon took over. The commander of a state police goes into retirement to take a job with a drug cartel. What a country. Landin was so arrogant that he went shopping for a watermelon in McAllen on the US side of the border where he was spotted and arrested. The leader of the Gulf cartel in in jail in the US awaiting trial. The federalis are closing in on other members of the gang in Reynosa and Rio Bravo, but there is much left to do to return the border area to the rule of law.