Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, has already surpassed 2,000 homicides this year.

Mayra Cuevas-Nazario
CNN

Has Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, been lost to the drug cartels?

New figures released to CNN on Wednesday by Mayor Jose Reyes Ferriz indicate the death toll for this year has already surpassed 2,000 homicides - almost 400 more murders than the total count for 2008.

"It has been 22 months of this war, and it hasn't stopped. The violence has increased, and the possibility that it will stop is becoming more remote," Reyes Ferriz told CNN in a phone interview.

The mayor attributed the surge in drug-related violence to an influx of cartel groups. The rival Sinaloa and Juarez cartels are making their way to the city to participate in the warfare for the control of the smuggling route between Ciudad Juarez and El Paso, Texas. The Sinaloa cartel is headed by Mexico's most wanted man, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, according to authorities.

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A fence separates the United States from Mexico in the U.S. Border Patrol's Yuma Sector in San Luis, Arizona.

Rudy Ruiz
Special to CNN

You invent a product. You brand it. You market it like crazy. With a lot of hard work, determination and a little luck, you find yourself with a winner on your hands.

Everybody wants what you've got. They'll pay any price. They'll camp all night outside your store. They'll travel from anywhere - risking their lives, dodging bullets, swimming across troubled waters and climbing barbed-wire fences. People will learn a new language, even leave family and heritage behind, all for a shot at what you've made a fortune selling.

But then, a big problem emerges: A block of stockholders doesn't want to sell the product any more.

Those stockholders are hoarding it, afraid supply is dwindling. They complain it's too costly to manage the crowds and it's getting chaotic in the bargain basement.

So you hire more security guards, build barriers and fences. You award lucrative contracts to surveillance companies, hike prices, downscale production and restrict product benefits. But still, wide-eyed customers think you're the best.

Your efforts backfire. They have the effect of a velvet rope and an oversized bouncer in front of a hot nightclub - the more unattainable, the more exclusive your product seems, the more people want it.

A black market flourishes. Desperate people break and enter. The angry shareholders call it stealing, although customers do their best to pay even while they receive a fraction of the product's benefits.

You blanket the store with guards to keep away the unwanted customers, but they won't take a hint. The same faces keep reappearing at your door.

It turns out the neighboring store is even less welcoming. It's saddled by bad management decisions, low employee morale, and infighting. Some of your neighbor's disgruntled ex-employees are even sneaking into your store, like pirate profiteers, to sell harmful, illegal merchandise to your legitimate customers.

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Program Note: Watch AC360° tonight for a profile of Rusty Fleming and his work reporting on the drug trafficking along the border of U.S. and Mexico. Tonight AC360° at 10 p.m. ET.

Inside a morgue in Juarez, Mexico. The belongings of victims killed in the violence.

Rusty Fleming
Documentary Filmmaker and Author
www.drugwarsthemovie.com

A couple of weeks ago I was in New York, meeting with network television producers about a series they wanted to run about a story my production team and I have been reporting for more than five years: the narco-insurgency currently wreaking havoc on the U.S. and Mexico.

Just as we all sat down around the conference table, my cell phone rang. Given the importance of the meeting, I normally would have let the call go to voice mail, but when I looked at the number I knew I had to pick it up. This person would not be calling unless it was an absolute emergency. I opened the phone and didn’t even get the “Hello” out of my mouth before a shaken and somewhat scared voice said, “Rusty when can you be here?”

The caller was my most trusted source in Mexico. Slightly stunned by the abrupt nature of the call, I responded inquisitively, “pretty soon, I should wrap up here in New York in a couple of days, why?”

“We have to talk right away, we have a huge problem down here and you’re in the middle of it” he exclaimed.

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Program Note: Fred Burton joins us on AC360º tonight at 10 p.m. ET to discuss recent violence along the Mexican borer. Tune in to hear more.

Questions about human rights have entered the debate in Mexico over how to deal with violent drug cartels.

Stephen Meiners and Fred Burton
Stratfor

U.S. drug czar Gil Kerlikowske is in the middle of a four-day visit this week to Mexico, where he is meeting with Mexican government officials to discuss the two countries’ joint approach to Mexico’s ongoing cartel war. In prepared remarks at a July 27 press conference with Mexican Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora, Kerlikowske said Washington is focused on reducing drug use in the United States, supporting domestic law enforcement efforts against drug traffickers and working with other countries that serve as production areas or transshipment points for U.S.-bound drugs.

Absent from his remarks was any mention of the U.S. position on the role of the Mexican military in the country’s battle against the drug cartels. Kerlikowske’s visit comes amid a growing debate in Mexico over the role that the country’s armed forces should play in the cartel war. The debate has intensified in recent weeks, as human rights organizations in Mexico and the United States have expressed concern over civil rights abuses by Mexican troops assigned to counternarcotics missions in various parts of the country.

The director of Mexico’s independent National Human Rights Commission, for example, has encouraged the new legislature to re-examine the role of the Mexican military in the country’s cartel war, saying that the current approach is clearly not working. The number of citizen complaints against soldiers has increased over the last few years as the troops have become actively engaged in counternarcotics operations, and the commission director has expressed hope for greater accountability on the part of the armed forces.

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The New York Times

Mexican drug trafficking cartels “represent the greatest organized crime threat to the United States,” according to a recent Justice Department report. The cartels have waged increasingly violent battles with one another, as well as with the Mexican government, which began an aggressive crackdown in 2006.

Click here for an interactive of areas under cartel influence and dispute.

A 1993 photo of Joaquin Guzman Loera, aka El Chapo, at La Palma prison in Almoloya of Juarez.

CNN Producer

“He’s like a god in Mexico. Nobody sees him but he’s everywhere. He’s a myth,” says Mexican criminal attorney Antonio Ortega. He's speaking about the notorious drug lord Joaquin Guzman, better known on the street as “El Chapo.” Ortega holds the distinction of being one of the only people in the entire country who has met El Chapo and is brave enough to talk about it.

Mexicans rarely go on record about this ruthless leader of the Sinaloa drug cartel for good reason. He runs a narcotics empire, can order an assassination with ease, has Mexican government and law enforcement on his payroll and has even managed to make this year’s Forbes list of “The World’s Billionaires” (he’s #701).

But his mythical status goes beyond towering wealth and ultimate authority. El Chapo has survived three assassination attempts, evaded Mexican and American authorities – despite a U.S. bounty of $5 million on his head – and escaped prison in a laundry cart just before extradition to the United States.

Ortega met with El Chapo while he was in prison shortly before the notorious escape in 2001. He still remembers vivid details of his talk with the legendary criminal.

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Program Note: Tune in tonight for more about the war next door. Michael Ware reports on Joaquin Guzman Leora (also knows as "El Chapo"). He was on Forbes Magazine's annual wealthiest people list earlier this year. He's also on the FBI's Most Wanted list. Authorities say his $1 billion dollars is derived from cocaine trafficking.

AC360°

Michael Ware interviews Lawyer Antonio Ortega, one of the only people who has met Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman and is brave enough to talk about it.

This July 10, 1993 file photo shows Mexican Joaquin Guzman Loera, aka El Chapo, at La Palma prison in Almoloya of Juarez.