News anchor Marcos Knapp had been broadcasting reports of narco carnage all week from his western state of Michoacan: the mutilated corpses of 12 federal police officers dumped on a road; police headquarters attacked by dozens of gunmen with grenades; three officers called out to a traffic accident and then murdered in an ambush. But, as violent as the incidents were, Knapp was only truly shocked when a caller phoned his news show and said he was one of the cartel capos behind this bloodshed. "Our fight is with the federal police because they are attacking our families," the voice said calmly while Knapp stared worriedly at the camera. "If someone attacks my father, my mother or my brother then they are going to hear from me... If they only act against us, then we will respect them."

The chilling call appears to be the latest attempt to take the moral high ground by a quasi-religious drug cartel that has become one of the most dangerous threats to the Mexican security forces. The caller identified himself as Servando Gomez, head of a narcotics mafia that has baptized itself "La Familia Michoacana." The gangsters, who had bought ads in newspapers and given an interview to a leading Mexican magazine, claim that although they traffic drugs, they protect their local community and purport to be devout Evangelical Christians. All members are disciplined to abstain from narcotics themselves and care for their homes and children, La Familia says. They are also made to study a special Bible authored by the gang's spiritual leader, Nazario Moreno, alias El Mas Loco, or "The Maddest One."

-Article continues off site, courtesy Time.