Mexico frontrunner enlists anti-drugs fighter Latin America's most celebrated crime fighter, who masterminded the downfall of Colombia's drug cartels in the 1990s, is to join forces with Enrique Peña Nieto, Mexico's leading presidential candidate, the Financial Times has learnt. General Oscar Naranjo, who until recently headed Colombia's National Police, confirmed the news on Thursday. "He invited me to join his team," he said. I have every intention of helping him to reduce violence. Gen Naranjo will have the job of presidential adviser on security issues if Mr Peña Nieto wins next month's election. Mexico's constitution bars foreigners from being ministers. Mr Peña Nieto, candidate for the opposition Institutional Revolutionary party (PRI) and overwhelming favourite to win the July 1 presidential election, was expected to announce the partnership at a press conference in Mexico City on Thursday night. Experts said Gen Naranjo's support could give Mr Peña Nieto's push for the presidency a significant boost as he enters the campaign's final month. The 45-year-old former state governor, who is attempting to return PRI to the presidency after an absence of almost 12 years and has a double-digit lead over his closest competitor, according to most polls. Gen Naranjo, who was instrumental in toppling some of the world's most ruthless and most-wanted gangsters, including Pablo Escobar of the Medellín cartel and the Rodríguez Orejuela brothers, who ran Colombia's Cali cartel, will have his work cut out. He arrives in Mexico just as violence from organised crime has raced to the top of voters" concerns. More than 50,000 people have been killed in drugs-related violence since Felipe Calderón, outgoing president, declared an offensive on the country's cartels in 2006. Once one of the most peaceful countries in Latin America, Mexico has seen its murder rate climb from about eight per 100,000 inhabitants in 2007 to roughly 22 today. Many opinion polls show that the country's 112m people consider security to be a more pressing concern than the economy. The dismantling of Colombia's principal cartels in the 1990s helped fuel the development in Mexico of a multibillion-dollar illicit drugs business. Several well-funded and well-armed cartels control the business, and it is estimated that more than 80 per cent of all cocaine entering the US passes through Mexico. Unlike Colombia's National Police, Mexican security forces are hopelessly disjointed. There are an estimated 2,000 separate forces at the federal, state and municipal levels. Most of them do not share information and, in some cases, professional rivalries and widespread corruption hinder their law enforcement responsibilities. Gen Naranjo told the FT that he would bring to Mexico a "hemispheric perspective" to its problems of drug-related violence. He was deeply involved in the US-sponsored Plan Colombia during the 1990s and has been close to Washington for decades. He said Mexico first needed to make fighting crime a "state policy, not one of a particular government or political party." Second, it has to be an integral policy, not just against drug groups but against all types of violence. He also said Mexico needed to pass reforms to bring order to its myriad police forces. "We have to implement a national doctrine, and introduce professional standards across the board," he said. Finally, he said it was not possible to fix a specific time over which to measure results, but added that it would be wrong to think that Mexico's drug-related violence would take decades to resolve. "You have to instil confidence in the population so that [they] believe it can change," he said. It is going to change.