Drug cartels and their organizational structures

Drug Cartels

What is the relationship between Colombian and Mexican drug organizations?

Looking first at the background as to how cocaine came to be a profitable product, it is well-known that cocaine was a legal drug in Europe and in North and South America in the late 19th century up through the middle of the 20th century. Legal exports of cocaine in the early twentieth century amounted to "…ten metric tons" but legal exports of cocaine "…fell to under have a ton by 1950, when cocaine first became criminalized in South America" (Gootenberg, 2012). And by the 1950s, when the U.S. put pressure on sources bringing cocaine into the country "…drove the startling rise of Colombian cartels of the 1980s, Gootenberg explains on page 160 in the peer-reviewed Latin American Politics and Society. In Colombia, cartel leaders (Escobar, the Ochoas, and Carlos Lehder) began providing cocaine users in the U.S. with "…some one hundred tons (a year), driving down the drug's price, winning millions of avid customers…" (Gootenberg, 166).

The "war on drugs" led by Richard Nixon and later by Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, succeeded in diversifying the drug trafficking routes used by the Colombian cartels. Gootenberg asserts that American military incursions into Colombia created "…sleeker, far more anonymous, efficient and fluid smuggling networks"; instead of three or four big cartels, after U.S. military support there emerged "some six-hundred well-camouflaged drug export networks" (168). The transit route eventually detoured from the Caribbean into Mexico; instead of taking cash for helping Colombian cocaine pass through their country, Mexican drug lords "…began their own lucrative wholesale and retail drug outlets across the U.S. border and shores" (169). By 2000 Mexican cartels were buying cocaine from peasants in Peru, avoiding dealings with Colombian drug kingpins. Today, Colombian cartels are "in decline" and have "…entered a phase of organizational fragmentation and weakening"; there is bad blood between Colombian cartels and Mexican cartels (Beckhusen, 2013). In fact Mexican cartels are battling with Colombian cartels for control of the cocaine trade in Ecuador; and there is a "…disintegration of the relationship between Mexican and Colombian groups in Ecuador" which could cause a "destabilizing confrontation" (in Sight Crime, 2011).

TWO: How do these organizations differ from one another? Colombia is presently home to "…some 600 or more well-camouflaged drug export networks" (called "boutique" cartelitos, they are smaller and far more diversified than the big cartels known as Cali and Medellin), while Mexican cartels are powerful and very large (Gootenberg, 2010). The powerful cartels in Mexico include: the Gulf Cartel and the Sinaloa. Unlike Colombian cartels, which were attacked and broken up by U.S. military incursions -- and by billions of dollars the U.S. government sent to Colombia -- the Gulf Cartel and Sinola Cartel are big, brutal, and known for their "…bloody, violent image" (Kellner, et al., 2010). Writing in the peer-reviewed World Policy Journal, Kellner and colleague explain that another Mexican drug gang, Los Zetas, is known for kidnapping and demanding ransoms; and police are "outgunned" and "overpowered by criminals, who have become increasingly brazen…" (Kellner). Hence, the well-hidden and diverse drug cartels in Colombia are in stark contrast to the big, blood-letting cartels of Mexico.

THREE: Do these cartels present as much of a danger to the United States as terrorist organizations? The answer has to be no, they do not, because while the cartels kill, kidnap and behead police and politicians in Mexico, they have not yet invaded the U.S. with a strategy of murdering authorities. On the other hand, just this month in Boston, Americans were reminded as to the danger terrorists present (even U.S. citizens who terrorize communities) when they plant bombs in public places. There are dangers associated with tons of cocaine and heroin coming across the U.S.-Mexican border (addiction, crime, etc.) but it is in no way is it the same threat to U.S. security as the terrorist acts.