Recruiting ads for smugglers

Reuters:

Guatemala is investigating radio advertisements seeking elite ex-soldiers, who have been known to work for drug cartels, to smuggle goods into Mexico, officials said on Thursday.

The ads were broadcast in the lawless northern jungle region of Peten, home to a tough military training center for Kaibil soldiers, infamous during Guatemala's civil war as a brutal guerilla-fighting, special forces unit.

"We invite all citizens who have served in the military and graduated as Kaibils to work securing vehicles transporting merchandise to Mexico," the radio spot said, according to a local newspaper. The ad gave a telephone contact number.

Former Kaibil soldiers have been lured to work as assassins and run security for powerful drug lords by cash payments that can be as much as 10 times the average army salary, according to a Kaibil commander interviewed by Reuters.

Spokesmen for the Interior Ministry and the army said authorities still were investigating the origin of the radio ads, which may have been transmitted on pirated airwaves.

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This is an attempt to create the equivalent of the Mexican Zeta gang that has been providing the muscle for the Gulf Cartel. It is ironic that gangs are using the same scheme to infiltrate into Mexico. One of the reasons for the ads is probably the difficulty associated with entering into Mexico on its souther border since it too got serious about border enforcement.

If the ad was not on a pirate station then the prospective employer is a fool. Even a pirate station can be located with radio direction finders that have been available for decades.