The Week-end Stock Pot Watch, Thursday, November 28th-December 1st. Holiday Edition!

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85. MEXICAN DRUG CARTELS NOW MAKE MONEY EXPORTING ORE

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/L/LT_MEXICO_DRUG_CARTEL_MINING?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2013-11-29-11-43-07

MEXICO CITY (AP) -- Mexican drug cartels looking to diversify their businesses long ago moved into oil theft, pirated goods, extortion and kidnapping, consuming an ever larger swath of the country's economy. This month, federal officials confirmed the cartels have even entered the country's lucrative mining industry, exporting iron ore to Chinese mills.

Such large-scale illegal mining operations were long thought to be wild rumor, but federal officials confirmed they had known about the cartels' involvement in mining since 2010, and that the Nov. 4 military takeover of Lazaro Cardenas, Mexico's second-largest port, was aimed at cutting off the cartels' export trade.

That news served as a wake-up call to Mexicans that drug traffickers have penetrated the country's economy at unheard-of levels, becoming true Mafia-style organizations, ready to defend their mines at gun point.

Three Michoacan state detectives were wounded in an ambush earlier this week when they were traveling to investigate a mine taken over by criminals. When reinforcements arrived, those officers were also ambushed, part of a string of attacks on police in Michoacan on Wednesday and Thursday that left two officers dead and about a dozen wounded.