Mexican drug cartels post help-wanted ads

EL PASO, Texas, April 4 (UPI) -- Mexican Consulate officials in El Paso, Texas, said Mexican drug cartels have been posting help-wanted ads in Juarez, Mexico, newspapers.

The officials said publications including P.M., El Diario de Juarez and El Norte have been printing vague help-wanted ads that are designed to trick young people into smuggling drugs over the border into the United States, the Las Cruces (N.M.) Sun-News reported Friday.

Mexican Consulate spokeswoman Socorro Cordova said the issue came to the attention of officials nine months ago when the family of a driver stopped at the U.S. border showed the ad to Mexican officials.

A Juarez woman who identified herself as Martha said her daughter was duped by one of the ads into accepting a job with a junkyard company that required her to drive twice a week to El Paso. Martha said her daughter was met at the border by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers.

"It was like they sent them a fax or something," she said. "Officers came out of everywhere and they let the other cars pass. This is what they are doing. They are tricking kids."