by Jaime Ortega Simo
Elias Johnson, a spokesman for the Pinal County Sheriff’s Office in Arizona, said in a phone conversation that there had been a substantial increase of drug smuggling entering along the border between Arizona and Mexico, as never seen in the past.
“The amount of drug distribution doubled this year,” Johnson said. “It went from $92,000 U.S.D. a few years back, to confiscating in 2011 about $1.2 million U.S.D..”
All the drugs pass through a detailed process of distribution before they are ready to be sold in the U.S. market.
“Most of the drugs are stashed in drop houses or trailers,” Johnson said. “These drugs are then broken and sold as illegal narcotics and distributed to different locations in the US, reaching as far as Ohio and all the way to New York.”
Johnson further stated that among the drugs ententering through Texas and Arizona they have also found detailed maps showing where U.S. gang-affiliated mafias like the New Mexican Mafia (Arizona) or La eMe (California) with alliance of Mexican cartels, distribute their narcotics through different routes across the U.S. However some of these alliances are in dangerous feuds with Los Zetas.
The notorious paramilitary Cartel Los Zetas known for its cruelty in eastern Mexico is under constant surveillance by the Central Intelligence Community and Department of Homeland Security.
The Cartel of Los Zetas controls the border separating Texas and Mexico, while its rivals the biggest drug organization in Mexico ‘the Sinaloa Cartel’ controls the drug trade bordering Arizona and California.
In certain regions in Texas, ‘Los Zetas’ is not present according to Luzz Marquez, Deputy Sheriff in El Paso, Texas.
“Los Zetas is not at the Juarez/El Paso Border,” said Marquez.” The Juarez Cartel and Sinaloa move dope through the El Paso area.”
The U.S. gangs that help the Sinaloa Cartel and the Juarez Cartels are also different than in Arizona, but dangerous nonetheless.
“The gangs affiliated with the Sinaloa group are the Artistas Asesinos and the Mejicles,” Marquez said. “They both fight with the Barrio Azteca from Juarez.”
In recent months, there has been a noticeable increase in efforts to fight drug trade, thanks to the government’s cooperation with local enforcement.
“We are working with local and Federal agencies to attack at the source, instead of the people who buy the drugs from them,” Johnson said.
Marquez said that their office also works well with local Border Patrol and the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol. They support each other’s investigations and share intelligence with each other about different crime operations.
But despite the help provided, if things were not bad enough, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Fire-arms and Explosives was caught running a sting operation trying to smuggle a significant number of weapons (about 2,000) mostly AK47’s on behalf of Mexican drug cartels.
Robert Farago the founder of the website the Truth About Guns, said in a phone conversation that the whole sting was a mess…a Federal mess presently in court.
“As far as we know and according to all the trials in court recently, there is strong evidence to suggest that the C.IA., F.B.I and D.E.A were also involved in this operation,” Farago said.
The A.T.F. suggested the weapons were destined to help reinforce the Mexican Government in their quest to fight drug cartels, but Farago suggested the A.T.F. is using this as an excuse to hide the obvious.
“It doesn’t make any sense,” said Johnson. “If the Mexican Government needed weapons they would fly a few commercial airliners to China and get their firearms for cheaper.”
For Farago the most likely explanation is that the U.S. Federal agencies involved in the scandal were helping reinforce the Sinaloa Cartel and other cartels to fight against the vicious “Los Zetas.”
“I have a close friend that works for the C.I.A. and he told me the U.S. Government is scared of Los Zetas,” Farago said. “Los Zetas has a lot of power in Mexico and our Government is afraid they will take over the corrupted Mexican Government.”
But for Angelica Martinez-Duran, PhD candidate in the department of Political Science Department at Brown University, some of the statements proposed from Farago are not safe and lack clarity.
“Drug trafficking organizations already have extended corruption networks within the government,“ Martinez-Duran said. “However, it is unrealistic to think that one organization can completely take over a government.”
Martinez-Duran also said that the U.S. may have knowledge of these connections, but she doesn’t think it intercedes with foreign policy, unless a high ranking official were accused of helping one organization beyond reasonable doubt.
Concerning ‘Operation Fast and Furious’, Martinez-Duran also disagreed with Farago’s view about the outcome of the situation.
“What is clear about Operation Fast and Furious is that arms that were nominally aimed at following and indicting criminal organizations ended up being used in criminal acts by these very same organizations,” Martinez-Duran said.
Martinez-Duran added that whether this was a part of a bigger plan to help one criminal organization (we cannot yet say that was the case), the operation revealed the basis, the “weak” basis upon which “intelligence” operations are established and monitored and of course makes evident that arms flow easily and quickly among criminal organizations.
Through recent drug dilemmas, the dangerous tension on the borders is escalating. Whether or not the U.S. Government is helped reinforce a criminal enterprise to defeat another is unclear. But if so, it would be equal to smuggling guns to the Taliban to defeat Al-Qaeda.
As far as the State of Ohio, for Farago, the city of Cleveland is a referral point for distribution of meth, cocaine and marihuana. The origins are in Mexico.
Lieutenant Anne R. Ralston, a spokesperson for the Ohio State Highway Patrol, said in an e-mail, that drug traffickers transport illegal narcotics through Ohio on a regular/daily basis.
She said drugs move across the county. So as a result of where Ohio sits in relation to the rest of the country illegal narcotics pass trough Ohio on our major east/west and north/south Interstates.To fight the problem the Department of Homeland Security (D.H.S.) and the Ohio State Highway Patrol (O.S.H.P.) are fighting to keep communities safe from drugs.
“The O.S.H.P. works diligently to remove these dangerous drugs from our roadways as we know drugs are not only coming through Ohio,” continued Ralston “,but often times the drugs are destined to Ohio communities.”
Interstate I-35 is the main vein of traffic leading to major cities. The highway starts in the south and crosses into other states were drugs are distributed.
Marquez said there are major cities in TX used to store and ship contraband out, which I-35 goes through. Interstate I-35 is also the route back into Mexico with currency and weapons.
A thin line holds the Mexico-U.S. foreign connection. For Martinez-Duran relations will continue to be tense especially around issues like firearms headed to Mexico and the lack of effort on the part of the U.S. Government to curb U.S. demand on drugs.
Outcomes will depend on who wins elections both in Mexico and the US. However, Martinez-Duran thinks that even with big political changes on the horizon, current policies and relations will not change radically.
Even though the tensions are visible, for both Marquez and Johnson, it seems clear that drug smuggling is at no end point .
“With the amount of limited enforcement available to fight the drug distribution,” Johnson said, “it is inaccessibly hard to inspect 70 miles of land without having smugglers passing contraband across the Mexican border into Arizona almost daily.”
As for Marquez the way to stop the drug smuggling has ultimately become “The million dollar question.”
Farago opts for legalizing drugs, as that would take a direct financial hit on illegal narcotics and could slowly erode the core of drug cartel trade Martinez-Duran agrees.
“The only way to really stop the smugglers would be to eliminate the illegal market and the demand for drugs that allows them to exist,” Martinez-Duran said. “That requires reconsidering the current drug prohibition regime.”
Unlike the past, when Italian-Mafias dominated the drug scene, what seems clear now, is that the Mexican criminal enterprises dominate the U.S. drug trade. When you have the D.H.S. claiming that Los Zetas is a bigger threat than Al-Qaeda, and possibly helping fund a rival cartel to defeat them, its time to wake up and smell the coffee.
Jaime Ortega.
The Daily Journalist.
Good post!