'It’s like a job fair in here': Mexican cartels tap U.S. prisons to get ‘criminal talent’ to join as drug runners and assassins on release

Mexican drug cartels are recruiting convicts in U.S. prisons to work for them as drug runners, assassins and enforcers when they are released.

One prisoner who is nearing the end of a 10-year sentence has said he was approached by Mexican drug gangs who wanted to give him 20kilograms of cocaine to sell when he got out - worth nearly half a million dollars on the street.



The prisoner said the Mexican drug gangs are beginning to see American prisons as a 'job fair' that can supply an endless stream of talent in the United States as prisoners are released back into society.



Inside-out: A federal incitement recently revealed that the federal prison at Forrest City, Arkansas, was being used as a recruitment center for the Gulf Cartel

'The conditions are perfect right now for the cartels,' the prison inmate told the Daily Beast.



'They have a pool of captivated untapped talent and ready-made resources which they can access in our prisons. I'm telling you, it’s like a job fair in here.'

Last month, the FBI indicted 16 members of the Gulf Cartel for bringing more than 100kilograms of cocaine into northern Arkansas, alleging the Mexican crime syndicate recruited numerous drug runners from the Federal Correctional Complex at Forrest City.

The recruits were hired to distribute the cocaine for the cartel after they were released from prison.



High-ranking Gulf Cartel leaders, Indalia Ramos Rangel, aka La Tia or Big Momma, and her son Mohammed 'Mo' Martinez were among the Mexican gang leaders charged in connection with the crimes. They remain at large.



Large numbers of the cartels' Mexican employees in the United States are currently locked up in federal prison with 20 to 30 year sentences.



Prison gangs like the Aryan Brotherhood are working to impress the Mexican cartels so they will be awarded with cash and work peddling drugs

As a result, the cash-rich cartels need new thugs to carry out their work north of the border and they have found an ample supply in U.S. prisons.



Prison gangs works to display their loyalty to the Mexican cartels in the hopes that work - along with money and power - will come along.



'In prison they make a big deal of trying to impress the narco guys, so they can gain their confidence and show them they are reliable, effective and solid gangsters who aren't afraid to put in work,' the prison inmate told the Daily Beast.

