In the Mexican state of Michoacan, La Familia, headed by purported evangelical Christian Nazario Moreno, hands out toys to children, gives money to the poor and helps build schools.
Mr. Moreno, who bans La Familia members from drinking alcohol or taking narcotics, also holds prayer and indoctrination sessions, and allegedly finances rural evangelical churches and drug rehabilitation centres across the state.
But the man known as El Mas Loco (The Craziest One) also runs a drug-smuggling operation that beheads enemies and rivals, and mows down police and army officers in a battle for power in the home state of Felipe Calderon, the Mexican President.
"They want to see themselves as Robin Hood figures," said Julian Gudino, a security consultant in Mexico City.
"Obviously this is false, but if they have that local support, they can run their trafficking business much more easily."
La Familia uses Bible scriptures and self-help slogans to inspire its traffickers and has taken over smuggling in Michoacan, just a five-hour drive from Mexico City. They have gained power despite Mr. Calderon's almost three-year assault on cartels in the state and across the country.
"I ask God for strength and he gives me challenges that make me strong," says one slogan signed "The Craziest One" and found by soldiers on a raid last year on a cartel safe house. "I ask him for wisdom and he gives me problems to resolve; I ask him for prosperity and he gives me brain and muscles to work."
After the group killed 16 police in a series of brazen attacks last week, Mr. Calderon sent 5,500 troops, elite police and navy officers to the mountainous marijuana-producing state in one of the biggest surges of the drug war.
Yesterday, helicopters whirred overhead and convoys of army trucks patrolled the state capital, Morelia‚ a city once described as the most beautiful in Mexico, as tourists sat in cafes.
Formed in the 1980s, La Familia has vowed to stop sales of the methamphetamine drug "Ice" in the state, saying it is destroying local communities. Instead, it exports all meth production to the United States.
In a call to a local TV station last week, a cartel member said its main aim was to bring order to Michoacan, help the poor with cash handouts and protect working families.
By such methods, Mr. Moreno, who has a US$2-million bounty on his head,
hopes to promote a mystique unique among Mexican gangs by claiming openly to protect locals.
As La Familia has grown to develop distribution networks in U. S. states such as Georgia, California and Illinois, it has also taken on the Gulf cartel's armed wing, the Zetas, a group from northeastern Mexico that has tried to take control of Michoacan.
In a full-page newspaper advertisement in 2006, La Familia said it was fighting back the "destructive power" of the Zetas and offering a cartel that "helps families."
Some residents in Morelia say La Familia may be the lesser of two evils.
"If the army can't stop drug traffickers, I'd rather they had an interest in our communities even if it is only to benefit their business," said Ana Tinoco, an off-duty waitress sitting by Morelia's majestic cathedral.
But La Familia is by no means a soft touch.
A fight with the Zetas for Michoacan has killed almost 300 people this year, mirroring the growing violence across Mexico. About 12,800 have died since late 2006.
Last week, as the fighting became ever more violent, the cartel dumped the blood-smeared bodies of 12 federal police by a remote highway. It was revenge for the capture of a gang leader by police.
According to an article in Time magazine last week, La Familia reserves the right to use violence against anyone who betrays them.
"Those who commit mistakes are tied up for a long time. If the mistake is grave, they are tortured. If there is loss of trust and treachery, they must die," a cartel spokesman called El Tio (the Uncle) said in a newsmagazine interview.
U. S. anti-drug experts say members of La Familia must complete a three-to six-month training camp in Michoacan run by former Mexican and Guatemalan elite soldiers. The group may also have linked up with Mexico's top drug lord, Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman, to share smuggling routes over the U. S. border.
"The criminals have a very clear objective and they're not afraid of the military," said Minerva Bautista, the state police chief.
La Familia also wields great power in local politics, making the organization harder to confront.
This year, troops rounded up 10 mayors and a string of police chiefs accused of working for the cartel in one of the biggest single anti-corruption sweeps of the drug war.
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