Mex. Drug Cartels Operating In The U.S. Thru Street Gangs

Written by Michael Webster

by Michael Webster
NWS Columnist
Many street gangs in the larger cities are now directly connected to the Mexican Drug Cartels (MDC’s). They ...

... smuggle drugs and humans into the U.S. via known and un-known smuggling corridors throughout the Southwestern United States. Law enforcement indicates that they work for and do the dirty work for the cartels in return for drugs. This dirty work includes murder, drug distribution, and collection of debts owed to the MDC’s by other gangs and drug traffickers nationwide.

Federal authorities point to the Mexican drug cartels that are ultimately responsible for border violence on both sides of the U.S. Mexican border and beyond, by having cemented ties to U.S. Street and prison gangs all across America. Many of these gangs operate in cities like El Paso, Tucson, San Diego and Los Angeles some like Barrio Azteca from El Paso who operate on both sides. Azteca and other U.S. gangs retail drugs that they get often fronted from Mexican drug cartels and Mexican drug cartel gangs. Mexican gangs run their own distribution networks in the United States, and they produce most of the methamphetamine used north of the border. They have even bypassed the Colombians several times to buy cocaine directly from producers in Bolivia, Peru and even heroin from Afghanistan. These gangs provide distribution and enforcement for the long reach of the cartels.

Barrio Azteca according to law enforcement has provided the Juarez cartel with street enforcers to carry out hits and kidnappings on both sides of the border. In exchange, Barrio Azteca get drugs from the cartel at wholesale prices or fronted and handle street-level drug sales, FBI agent Samantha Mikeska has said.

These same gangs often work as cartel surrogates or enforcers on the U.S. side of the border. Intelligence suggests Los Zetas They're known as "Los Zetas have hired members of various gangs at different times including, El Paso gang Barrio Azteca, Mexican Mafia, Texas Syndicate, MS-13, and Hermanos Pistoleros Latinos to further their criminal endeavors.

Dangerous Mexican Cartel Gangs

A Mexican Army Officer, who insists on remaining un-named claims that Barrio Azteca is now operating with and in conjunction with Los Zetas, along the Mexican border with Arizona.

Mexican authorities said U.S. intelligence pointed toward involvement in the slayings by the Aztecas, of Consulate employee Lesley A. Enriquez and her husband, Arthur H. Redelfs, whom were killed in Juarez when gunmen opened fire on their sport utility vehicle after they left a birthday party.

Jorge Alberto Salcido, the husband of a Mexican employee of the consulate, also was killed by gunmen after leaving the same event in a separate vehicle.

The governor of Chihuahua State in northern Mexico, where Ciudad Juarez is located, said recently that Mexican authorities are studying the possibility that Redelfs may have been targeted because of his job as a detention officer at the El Paso County Jail.

“Until we get other information, this is a line of investigation we want to follow up,â€