Page 24 - Inside Mexico News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Drug smugglers hurling their stolen vehicles back into the rio grande were doing it for one reason. to protect their dope at all costs. >> all units we had a splash down. we have a splashdown in the river. >> they don't mind losing the truck into the river. at the end of the day if they can recover 2,000 pounds of narcotics with an estimated street value between 600 and 800,000 that's what they're going to do is protect that inventory. >> it's going under. suspect just about on my side. >> reporter: inside mexico, the army has visibly taken over much of the security in border towns. local mexi...

Understand is how well coordinated this is and what the level of scouting and planning and organization is. >> right coming up. >> reporter: these videos of chases at first made no sense. >> you getting a shot of this? >> yeah, i got it. >> reporter: drug runners caught in the u.s. and then racing back to mexico. >> coming up to the river. >> reporter: their stolen vehicles hurled full speed into the rio grande. >> oh, my god. splash down. >> reporter: at first, law enforcement believed these were desperate attempts to escape. then they began to hear radio traffic. coordinates. >> get ready, g...

Are you surprised or are you hardened to the fact that most of america doesn't realize this is going on? >> you know, it does amaze me, and maybe it's because i'm exposed to it so much working on the southwestern border, but we're in a war. we're in an engagement with an enemy that's like no other enemy we ever faced before. you have to combat these people with some of the same tactics that they employ on you. if you asked me ten years ago would we be doing some of the missions and tactics that we're doing today, i would have said absolutely not. >> reporter: since 2004, the state department s...

See a sunken church. he is sick of the media attention and insists that the lake and the fishermen are completely safe as long as they follow these unwritten rules. >> this is not a jet ski lake. never a jet ski seen. they come, they show up on jet skis that they don't see, then they try to approach them and stop them, because it's a war over there. two cartels fighting each other for control, and they don't stop. they take off running. >> colette agreed to take us to old guerrero, eight miles into mexico, into what he describes as a drug war, to show us just how safe it really was. but before...

Terrorism. politics. and -- the way of life of mexico. and the politics -- i think there's too many connections between u.s. and mexico, too much money going back and forth. >> reporter: connections you mean in a criminal way? >> in a money way. i think it's all money. >> reporter: in the air over border country, captain stacy holland says the financial stakes are so high for the drug cartels, that money takes precedence over everything else. >> so what the states faced with and the nation really is an aggressive narcotics smuggling ring, cartel, their interest lies in their inventory. that's ...