MEXICO CITY, May 2 (Reuters) - A Mexican drug baron in prison in the United States threw a party with presents and clowns for 500 poor children back home despite a government crackdown on warring cartels.

"Your friend Osiel Cardenas Guillen wishes you a Happy Children's Day. You are the future of Mexico," read a banner at the event in the town of Acuna at the border with Texas, Reforma newspaper said on Friday.

Clowns entertained more than 500 children from low-income families, who were also given small gifts at the event in the center of town to mark Children's Day celebrated in Mexico on Wednesday.

The paper said Cardenas sponsored the party.

Drug smugglers are viewed as folk heroes in some poor parts of northern Mexico, where songs romanticizing their exploits top music charts.

Wealthy gangs often pay for new churches in impoverished villages where the government lacks funds to build roads or provide electricity.

Cardenas, who rose to the top of the Gulf cartel by killing his boss, was captured in a 2003 gun battle between soldiers and gang members.

After Cardenas served a prison sentence in Mexico, President Felipe Calderon extradited him to Texas last year to face charges for smuggling drugs and threatening two U.S. federal agents.

Imprisoned drug bosses in Mexico are often thought to continue leading their organizations, despite being behind bars.

Calderon has sent some 25,000 soldiers and federal police to fight drug cartels battling for territory near the U.S. border and in other hot spots across Mexico but violence has continued, increasing in some regions.

In 2007, there were more than 2,500 drug killings across Mexico and there have been more than 900 this year. (Reporting by Noel Randewich; editing by Howard Goller)

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