Narco Culture: Lifestyles Of The Rich And Infamous -- Mexican Drug Traffickers Show Ostentation, Bad Taste In Choice Of Furniture, Jewelry

MEXICO CITY - When government troops seized the abandoned house of drug lord Amado Carrillo Fuentes earlier this year, the first thing that caught their eye was the snakeskin furniture.

"Chairs, couches, beds, everything . . . was upholstered with snakeskin," recalls a senior official with Mexico's Special Prosecutors' Office for Drug Crimes.

The furniture is part of thousands of bizarre luxury goods confiscated from drug traffickers in recent years, which interior decorators and art connoisseurs describe as part of a "narco chic" culture in this country.

So many drug-underworld objects are piling up in government storage houses that the attorney general's office is drafting a bill to speed up the tortuous legal process of putting them on the auction block. In the first nine months of this year, the government seized more than 1,100 properties and valuable objects from drug traffickers worth $150 million, according to Mexico's Attorney General Jorge Madrazo.

Questionable taste

Auctioneers say that actors, entertainers, jewelry makers and drug traffickers themselves are likely to become the leading clients for the confiscated goods, which have several things in common: They are exotic, they are expensive, and they are in incredibly bad taste.

Among the items auctioned in recent years:

-- Pendants for men's necklaces in the shape of AK-47 machine guns, with a compartment that can be used to hold cocaine. A gold pendant, shaped as a horseshoe with a horse head in the middle and encrusted with a ruby, was valued at $2,696.

-- A pistol, its handle lined with 203 grams of 18-karat gold, encrusted with diamonds totaling 45 karats, surrounded by smaller precious stones. It was priced at $38,500.

-- A large belt buckle made of 92 grams of gold encircled with rubies, with a 4.4-karat diamond in the middle, valued at $5,700.

-- Western-style boots, belts and windbreakers in snake, crocodile and antelope skin.

-- Small, gold figurines of nude, crucified women with feet shaped like small spoons, presumably for scooping up cocaine.

"The gold chains were so thick, they were like dog collars," said Alejandro Acosta, an artist working with the Monte de Piedad national pawnshop's promotion department. "Many people were interested in buying the pieces to melt them down and make other pieces."

Following press reports about alleged cases of misappropriation of confiscated goods, Madrazo set up a committee to supervise the drug barons' treasures.

While government agents are keeping many of the seized cars and boats for anti-narcotics operations, most of the "narco chic" articles are in storage, awaiting passage of the proposed law.

While some collectors may buy the pieces as objets d'art, or souvenirs of the drug era, there is widespread speculation that the drug traffickers themselves, or their relatives, are the main buyers.

"Most of this stuff is of such bad taste that only drug traffickers like it," says Guadalupe Loaeza, a best-selling writer who specializes in social trends.

Homage to the `Narco Saint'

Not all "narco-chic" objects are expensive. In several northern Mexico states, along the U.S. border, craftsmen on public squares sell braided leather necklaces - at about $1 apiece - with the image of Jesus Malverde, known as the Narco Saint.

Malverde was a Robin Hood-style bandit who was hanged in 1909 in Culiacan, Sinaloa. Drug lords like Carrillo Fuentes are known to have venerated him and have built chapels dedicated to his memory in Culiacan, Tijuana and other northern cities.

The growing popularity of the narco jewelry and the Jesus Malverde leather necklaces, coupled with record sales of folk-music albums telling the stories of well-known drug traffickers, is leading some observers to conclude that a "drug culture" is rapidly winning the hearts and minds of millions of Mexicans.

"There is a growing narco culture, which is turning drug traffickers into heroes," says Loaeza. "They are seen as courageous outlaws who help their people, have lots of money and women, and manage to escape the police."

Loaeza cites the phenomenal success of Los Tigres del Norte, a band that has been singing ballads about drug barons for nearly two decades and recently topped the charts with its latest album "Jefe de Jefes" (Boss of Bosses), widely believed to tell the story of Carrillo Fuentes.