Mexico Drug Trafficking Mexico, Political

Mexico Drug Trafficking

Mexico, Political Corruption, and Drug Trafficking

In many levels of responsibility, Mexican government authorities are reported to be among the most corrupt in North America. When it comes to its ability to slow the trafficking of narcotics into and through its nation, the Mexican government has failed again and again. Ample evidence and drug-related violence backs up that assertion and yet the drug trafficking situation in Mexico grows worse. First of all as to reasons for the heavy amount of drug trade and drug-related violence, it is a generally accepted fact that Mexican politicians and Mexican local, regional, and national government officials are to some degree -- or fully -- involved in the movement of drugs in and out -- and within the borders -- of Mexico. Data presented in this paper will provide background on the corruption that is apparently rampant in Mexico.

Thesis / Introduction

If it seriously intends to combat these aforementioned illicit activities, Mexico must launch a massive intervention and interdiction campaign, targeting the flow of drugs (cocaine, marijuana, methamphetamines, among others) on land, on sea, and Mexico must begin paying special attention of the movement of drugs and bulk currency through the use of illicit aviation.

How bad is it? Heroin Abuse is Spreading into the Heartland

An article in The New York Times ("In Heartland Death, Traces of Heroin's Spread") published May 31, 2009, points to the fact that Mexican drug cartels have "pushed heroin sales beyond major cities into American's suburban and rural byways" (Archibold, 2009). In fact, Ohio is a state where deaths from the use of heroin used to be very rare, but that is changing due to the greater influence of the Mexican drug cartels. Between 2004 and 2007, heroin-related deaths spread into 18 new counties (Archibold), and the number of deaths in those counties rose from 376 in the period from 2000 to 2003, to 546 deaths between 2004 and 2007.

Federal officials now state that the cartels in Mexico are "the greatest organized crime threat to the United States" -- taking over that dubious distinction from the Colombians and Dominicans (Archibold). In fact, the heroin that is being sold by the Mexican cartels in the U.S. is a "powerful new form" of the drug called "black tar," which has a darker color than previous versions of heroin and is very sticky (Archibold).

The Times' story asserts that illegal immigrants from Mexico are playing a role in the distribution of heroin in the U.S. And Archibold explains that two immigrants (Jose Manuel Cazeras-Contreras and Victor Delgadillo Parra) became part of a cartel's distribution ring when they were "unable to find jobs." Parra, who was sentenced to 16 1/2 years in prison for sale of heroin, told the Times that he at first was fearful of being arrested for selling heroin, but eventually he began doing it "to support his wife and son, as well as relatives in Mexico."

As a sign of how the use of heroin has grown in Ohio, the director of the rehabilitation center known as Maryhaven in Columbus, Ohio, Paul Coleman, told the Times reporter that the percentage of patients hooked on opiates ("principally heroin") grew from 38% in 2002 to 68% in 2008. The DEA agent for the central Ohio region is Tim Reagan, who told the Times that the "cells" that are set up by the cartels consist usually of a few people and they are not the ones who bring in the heroin, they just receive it and distribute it.

People working in the cells get heroin from the Nayarit state, on the Pacific Coast of Mexico, Reagan explained. There a "highly productive form of the poppy" from Colombia is processed in numerous laboratories in Nayarit state -- despite Mexican government efforts to fumigate those poppies. The cells in Ohio and other parts of the U.S. take orders for heroin over "disposable mobile phones," which makes it very difficult for police and DEA agents to trace phone calls. The orders for heroin are delivered by "dispatcher" and "runners" and cell members sell the drugs in busy places like shopping center parking lots, trying to blend in with crowds and activity (Archibold).

The Times also interviewed the arrested cell members about how the heroin actually got into the U.S. And learned that a "coyote" (human smuggler) actually is hired by the cartel to bring the drugs over the border. Then the coyote gets into the back of a Ryder truck and is driven to Columbus where he is trained for two weeks and taught how to deliver the heroin to customers. The "coyote" is told he will make a lot of money taking the risks he takes, but it winds up being $400 to $500 per week, a place to sleep and some food on occasion. Most of the earnings typically go to back to his family in Mexico.

One of the young men who died in Ohio from a heroin overdose, Arthur Eisel, had started on the drug OxyContin, to relieve pain from an injured back. OxyContin is a powerful drug and is available on the street in most cities. But reportedly, when the OxyContin supply ran low in the Columbus area, Eisel's dealer suggested heroin, which was far more readily available, and Eisel became addicted.

How bad is it? Recent Busts & Revelations Show Several Mexican Cartels' Sophistication, Purchasing Power & Reach -- and Use of Aviation

In April 2009, a young woman was arrested while standing guard over an anti-aircraft weapon in Sonora state, near the Mexican -- Arizona border. This is reportedly the first instance of anti-aircraft weaponry seized by authorities in Mexico (Sky News). The weapon is capable of firing 800 rounds a minute and reportedly can penetrate "any type of armor from more than 1,500 meters" (almost a mile away). The young woman was guarding an arsenal of weapons (including a grenade launcher, four heavy weapons, and ammunition) along with two pounds of opium gum and nine and a half pounds of poppy seeds. The arms and drugs were not surprising to find, but the anti-aircraft weapon was something of a shock to law enforcement because it shows the level of sophistication the drug traffickers have gone to in order to bolster their operations. The arrest adds to the fears of law enforcement that the war on drugs may become an air war in the near future. The anti-aircraft weapon is said to have been the property of the Beltran Leyva cartel, Sky News reported (http://news.sky.com).

Three weeks prior to the anti-aircraft weapon seizure, 23 tons of narcotics were rounded up and 750 suspects arrested in the United States, according to a news release from the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). The release asserts that "Operation Xcellerator" has been gathering evidence for these arrests for 21 months and the money and power behind the seized drugs and the arrested drug dealers is said to come from the Sinaloa Cartel, a major Mexican trafficking organization (DEA).

The Sinaloa Cartel launders millions of dollars from the sale of these drugs, mainly cocaine and marijuana, and markets the drugs through "distribution cells" in Canada and the United States (DEA). The U.S. arrests took place in Minnesota, California, Maryland, Arizona, New York State, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Texas (DEA).

There are stories in news sources that link Americans with various drug cartels, which creates a widening swath of corruption to be investigated by authorities. To wit, the Sinaloa Cartel is alleged to have a fleet of fifty planes that are used in their drug trafficking operations -- four of which were registered in the U.S., according to documents filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida (www.lagunajournal.com). The Laguna Journal alleges that documents reveal the money to purchase those four seized planes was laundered through Dennis Nixon's International Bank of Commerce (IBC), which is owned by Nixon's Bancshares of San Antonio. Nixon has raised up to $300,000 in one night to support the re-election of George W. Bush in 2004, the Laguna Journal asserts.

Incidentally, those 50 planes obtained by the Sinaloa Cartel for drug trafficking were allegedly purchased from U.S. sources by Pedro Alfonso Alatorre, one of the lead financiers for the Sinaloa Cartel, according to an indictment issues by Mexico's Attorney General. A story in the Mexican official Attorney General's Office (translated by Google) Web site states that Alatorre had the money laundered through a Chicago bank in 2007. Apparently the cartels in Mexico have connections in the United States to help launder money, to purchase airplanes for drug transport, and to distribute the marijuana, cocaine and other narcotics among American drug users.

How bad is it? The Government Accounting Office Issues Statement

In August 2007 the Government Accounting Office (GAO) reported on progress (or lack of it) by the U.S. National Drug Control Strategy, linked to the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), and the data presented shows how much work there is yet to be done in this regard. An estimated 275 "metric tons" of cocaine (a metric ton is 90% of a full ton, which is 2,240 pounds) arrive in Mexico each year, ready for transport into the U.S. -- and of those 275 metric tons the authorities average seizing about 36 metric tons. Doing the math quickly that indicates that about 239 metric tons of cocaine arrive in the U.S. annually, according to the GAO figures.

As for heroin and marijuana, the GAO's data shows that about 19 metric tons of heroin are produced in Mexico annually (only 1 metric ton is seized by the U.S. each year); and about 9,400 metric tons of marijuana are grown annually in Mexico, of which 2,900 metric tons are confiscated each year by U.S. law enforcement personnel (GAO). When it comes to methamphetamine, the GAO says no accurate estimate as to the amounts manufactured in Mexico, but seizures at the border with the U.S. have gone up exponentially since 2000, giving the distinct impression that there are likely widespread cartel meth production facilities that are unchecked in remote parts of Mexico. For example, in 2000 U.S. border seizures of meth totaled about 500 kilograms, but by 2005 that number rose to 2,900 kilograms -- and there is no indication that less is being seized in 2009.

How bad is it? Cocaine, Cash, and Other Drugs Seized at Mexico City Airport

According to the Mexican newspapers El Universal and La Jornada -- and the Secretariat of Safety of Mexico -- there have been numerous seizures of drugs at the Mexico City International Airport (MCIA). For example, on June 19, 2008, authorities seized thirty-five kilograms of cocaine from Costa Rica; on June 18, 2008, authorities seized 26 kilograms of cocaine on a flight from Bogota Columbia. On June 12, 2008 MCIA authorities confiscated a shipment of 14.6 kilograms of cocaine from Lima, Peru, and on May 20, 2008 580 kilograms of "pseudo ephedrine" were seized at MCIA. The list goes on: 2,213 kilograms of pseudo ephedrine seized at MCIA on February 15, 2008; 26 kilograms of ephedrine seized on April 28, 2008; 6.83 kilograms of cocaine seized at MCIA on April 1, 2009; and on May 11, 2009, 652 kilograms of cocaine were confiscated at MCIA. If this many kilos of drugs are being seized at MCIA, then how many kilos are arriving or leaving that are not seized? The analogy is usually made using cockroaches; if one or two are spotted climbing up the wall, it is likely that hundreds are crawling around inside the wall. Hence, if 50 kilos of cocaine are confiscated at any border, it is probably (as a projection) that many hundreds of kilos are getting safely through the border some way.

The amount of bulk currency seized at MCIA is eye-popping; using information from El Universal and the Secretariat of Safety, these numbers are estimates but believed to be reasonably accurate. The amount of money seized from confiscated boxes and briefcases full of U.S. dollars at MCIA between from February 2008 to January 2009 is a staggering $4,244,000.

How bad it is? Use of Aviation by Mexican Cartels is not a New Story

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime announced in 2006 that the success of "narcotic efforts at airports" depends on the professional level of the law enforcement personnel -- and on the coordination of their activities with other agencies. There were no specifics offered, just a memo to "reinforce regional cooperation among airports and encourage the adoption of harmonized procedures and methods in drug control" (www.unodc.org).

Drug Enforcement Administration COO Michael A. Braun testified before the House International Relations Committee on November 9, 2005; his subject was "The Illicit Drug Transit Zone in Central America." Braun explained, "Air smuggling continues to be an important smuggling method" for transporting cocaine; there are "literally hundreds of airstrips" in Central American like Guatemala and Belize, Braun continued. He noted that between 2004 and 2005, there has been a "documented increase" in the number of flights at night beginning in Colombia and landing in "northern Central America."

Indeed, he asserted that from January 1, 2005, to September 30, 2005, there were 26 "High-Confidence Suspect Air Tracks" (flights documented by air traffic monitors) confirmed. Of those, the joint task force interdicted two, which resulted in the seizure of 1,700 kilos of cocaine and the arrest of five smugglers (Braun, 2005). One wonders, if only two out of 26 known illicit aircraft are typically stopped, then how many aircraft carrying contraband into Mexico and Central American landing strips are not interdicted?

Braun asserted that aerial photographs show an "aircraft graveyard" in the northern Peten area of Guatemala, demonstrating the drug traffickers either crashed their planes during landing attempts, or they landed safely and then destroyed the planes in an attempt to get rid of key evidence. Once having landed in this remote region, traffickers then use vehicles over dusty, non-monitored roadways to bring the drugs into Mexico.

How bad is it? Mayors & Other Mexican Officials Arrested May 26, 2009

How deep has corruption reached into the community when it comes to local political activities in Mexico? The answer is of course that no one knows for certain, but on Tuesday May 26, 2009, Mexican security forces arrested 10 mayors and 17 other government officials (Wilkinson, 2009). An article in the Los Angeles Times reports that in a sweep of Michoacan, "home to a fast-growing group of drug traffickers," the arrests of mayors and other local officials was the "largest operation to target politicians" in the history of Mexico's "bloody drug war" (Wilkinson, A-19).

Among those detained include a close advisor to Michoacan Governor Leonel Godoy, a judge and "several top regional public security officials," the Times' article explained. The main drug cartel in Michoacan is "La Familia," which is "extremely violent" and has recently expanded its influence into at least three other states, the article asserts. Reginaldo Sandoval, the president of the Labor Party in Morelia (the capital of Michoacan) told the Times "Everything is so corrupt here, from top to bottom, the [federal] government had to show it was doing something."

The state of Michoacan has 113 municipalities, and according to Mexican intelligence sources 83 of those "…are mixed up at some level with narcos" (Willkinson). The government has certainly plenty of justification for moving in and attempting to hold politicians accountable given that recently "…dozens of mayors and other local officials have been killed or kidnapped" by La Familia, according to the Times' story. And those killings have been carried out with "chilling, disciplined efficiency" -- including severed heads being left on front porch steps as a warning to those who may try to interfere.

La Familia has expanded well beyond the communities of Michoacan, according to the story in the Times; indeed La Familia has "set up shop in 20 to 30 cities and towns across the United States," according to a law enforcement official in the U.S. The La Familia drugs of choice include marijuana, methamphetamine and cocaine, and they have set up meth labs in the "virtually lawless area" of southwest Michoacan (Tierra Caliente) where in 2006 the cartel "notoriously tossed five human heads onto a dance floor, an early signal of how grisly the drug war would become" (Wilkinson).

Indeed, several of the town mayors arrested Tuesday May 26 were from Tierra Caliente. But as to how much good it will do in the fight against the cartels, Alberto Islas, a security analyst in Mexico City, told the Times "…it won't have an impact on the amount of drugs going to the United States…at the end of the day, the mayors and politicians are just another instrument in the cartel's business" (Wilkinson).

Journalists who write about drug cartels and drug trafficking in Mexico have frequently been targets of the cartels. To wit, Milenio television and newspaper journalist Eliseo Barron was "snatched from his home" and killed on May 25, the second journalist in Durango state in the month of May. Barron's body was found in an irrigation ditch "with signs he had been tortured and shot" (Wilkinson).

How bad is it? 53 Drug Cartel Members Were Recently Sprung From Prison

On Saturday May 16, 2009, a well-planned operation at the Zacatecas state prison was carried out, freeing 53 inmates -- many of them "cartel gunmen," according to Tracy Wilkinson in the LA Times (May 18, 2009). Not a single shot was fired, leaving the distinct impression that it was "an inside job," Wilkinson writes. In fact, the governor of the state, Amalia Garcia, said, "It is clear to us that this was perfectly planned" and shortly after the jailbreak the prison warden and a pair of top guards were arrested and charged with complicity in the escape.

The video camera footage of the operation showed a convoy of 17 vehicles approaching the prison, with a helicopter hovering above the convoy. Thirty men (some wearing police uniforms) just passed easily through the prison gates, "rounded up the prisoners, loaded them into the cars and sped away" (Wilkinson, 2009). This was the third prison "break" in Zacatecas in the past few years, the article pointed out.

How bad is it? National Weakness in Mexico

Nationwide, over 11,000 people have been killed since 2006 in Mexico's drug war, and in 2006 alone some 6,200 drug-related killings have been reported, which is up more than 100% from 2007, according to The New York Times (Lacey, 2009). Many of those 6,200 deaths were "gruesome mutilations intended by the cartels to attract notice"; and a good number of those killings were drug dealers "enforcing discipline within their ranks" and some of the killings involved rival cartel members operating in territory claimed by another drug gang (Lacey).

The weaknesses in Mexico that allow these cartels to take hold include the fact that the country's police officers are not paid well; and to make ends meet supervisors reportedly encourage officers to take bribes. It's part of Mexico's "cultural eccentricity," Lacy explains. The traffickers have "thousands of police officers, small-town mayors and even high-level government officials across the country on their payroll," Lacy goes on. In fact, in the last 12 months in Mexico, the country's top organized crime prosecutor "has been arrested for receiving cartel cash"; along with that arrest, came the bust of the director of Interpol.

Statistics also show how feeble the federal law enforcement efforts have been in prosecuting drug-related criminality. Only 24 out of every 1,000 crimes that have been reported to authorities has resulted in suspects being sentenced to prison (Lacy), according to one study. In fact for every 100 suspects arrested, "fewer than 4 were ever found guilty," that same study reported. It is obvious that corruption runs through the judiciary as well as through law enforcement and politics.

Worse yet, roughly 90% of people who have been crime victims even bother to report the crime; they are clearly cynical about the possibility of law enforcement being able to catch the crooks responsible. Add to that the fact that some 100,000 Mexican army soldiers have quit the army in recent years, choosing instead to join the cartels, where the money is much better, and one can clearly see the law enforcement authorities in Mexico are either outnumbered now or will be in the very near future.

The cartels are heavily armed, Lacy writes; there are an estimated 40,000 soldiers in the cartels, and they are backed with "military-grade weapons…antitank rockets and armor-piercing munitions," the same kinds of weapons the U.S. uses in Iraq and Afghanistan.

How bad is it? What is Being Done?

The GAO's report (referenced earlier in this paper) points to "corruption" which "persists within the Mexican government" and that corruption poses a serious challenge to efforts to shut down drug production and trafficking. The problem also lays in the fact that Mexican drug trafficking organizations "operate with relative impunity" along the U.S. border with Mexico as well as inland in the interior of Mexico. Moreover, the drug cartels in Mexico had "expanded their illicit business to almost every region of the United States" (GAO).

These realities exist notwithstanding the assistance the U.S. has given Mexico in terms of training for law enforcement personnel and financial assistance for counter-narcotics programs. What the GAO recommends is that the U.S. And Mexico engage in a more aggressive cooperative effort to stop the flow of drugs. At the time of this memo, the GAO states that the two countries do not have a treaty that allows U.S. law enforcement officers to go aboard vessels on the high seas under Mexican registration, vessels that are suspected to be carrying illicit drugs. That agreement needs to be completed, the GAO asserts, and also the aerial monitoring program along the U.S. border with Mexico should be started up again. In addition, the Vietnam-era helicopters that the U.S. gave Mexico have proved to be "expensive and difficult to maintain" and so newer, more advanced helicopters would be helpful for Mexico.