http://www.mexidata.info/id1265.html

Monday, February 26, 2007



The Internationalization of Mexican Druglords



By Barnard R. Thompson



So what do Mexico, globalization, and narcotics trafficking have in common?



According to British economist Anthony Giddens, in his 1998 book The Third Way: The Renewal of Social Democracy, “Globalization can ... be defined as the intensification of worldwide social relations which link distant realities in such a way that local happenings are shaped by events occurring many miles away and vice versa.”



And the fact is — over and above homegrown problems — that Mexico is both a victim of and party to such realities, pressures and abuse.



With the ongoing demand for drugs in the United States and many other nations, Mexican druglords have been internationalizing their cartel operations and influence at breakneck speed according to mostly Spanish language news reports. This as they and their cohorts move the illicit products from point to point en route to destination countries and users.



A February 21 piece in the Mexico City daily El Universal began, “Information from the Colombian and U.S. governments indicates that Colombian narcotics organizations have ceded more and more of the transportation and distribution of drugs to Mexican organizations in order to evade authorities of the aforementioned countries.” This according to Jorge Barón, who heads Colombia’s National Antinarcotics Police.



As to money laundering, the National Drug Threat Assessment 2007 of the U.S. Department of Justice reports: “Mexican and Colombian DTOs [drug trafficking organizations] are responsible for most wholesale-level drug money laundering in the United States. Mexican and Colombian DTOs together generate, remove, and launder between $8.3 billion and $24.9 billion in wholesale distribution proceeds from Mexico-produced marijuana, methamphetamine, and heroin and South American cocaine and heroin annually….”



Quoting a Colombian government report, the El Universal article went on to say that the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, FARC, one of Colombia’s two largest insurgent groups, has control over that country’s production of cocaine. The FARC gets 78 percent of its income from cocaine, with more than one-half of that revenue coming from drug sales to Mexican cartels, it added.



The office of Mexico’s Attorney General was contradicted in El Universal, for repudiating past reports of ties between the FARC and Mexican drug dealers. As well, Carlos Medina Ramírez, the deputy director of Colombia’s National Directorate of Stupefacients, told the newspaper “There is no doubt of a direct relationship between Mexican cartels and our narco-terrorist groups.”



In addition, U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) administrator Karen Tandy said in March of 2006 that, “From their jungle hideaway, the FARC uses the drug trade to bankroll terrorism in Colombia, finance attacks on innocent citizens, and poison Americans.”



For some time there have been reports of direct activities in Peru by Mexican drug gangs, especially the Tijuana Cartel. According to The Dallas Morning News (January 8, 2007), “Mexican drug cartels, once regarded mainly as couriers for South American cocaine producers, have spread their powerful tentacles deep into [Peru], sowing violence and nourishing the reemergence of Shining Path guerrillas, authorities say.”



The piece continues: “In South America, the Mexican groups are bypassing the Colombians and cutting their own deals with coca farmers in Peru and Bolivia, setting up dozens of tiny, state-of-the-art cocaine processing labs inside Peruvian territory, say Western diplomats and Peruvian authorities. The groups are opening new consumer markets throughout Latin America and elsewhere.”



The Lima daily El Comercio reported on January 29 that 26 presumed members of the Tijuana Cartel, arrested four years ago in Peru for trafficking in drugs being shipped to Mexico and the United States, had been convicted and sentenced on January 28. Other than Peruvians, one Mexican and six Colombians were among the intercontinental criminals given prison terms ranging from five to 25 years by the Peruvian court.



Getting back to present day drug trafficking and traffickers, there are regular reports of Central American countries also being used as intermediate staging areas and launch pads to move cocaine and other drugs north. And most recently Nicaragua has been in the spotlight.



A report in the Mérida, Mexico, based Diario de Yucatán (January 9) said that Nicaraguan police “had identified the Tijuana Cartel, of the Arellano Félix [family], as being responsible for a series of gigantic drug trafficking operations, from Colombia to Mexico and the United States, that have been detected in recent months along the Pacific coast of Nicaragua.”



And this piece concluded: “Police and security sources from Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama have warned of an accelerated process of ‘mexicanization’ of drug trafficking in Central America, especially in the Pacific sector.”



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Barnard Thompson, editor of www.mexidata.info, has spent nearly 50 years in Mexico and Latin America, providing multinational clients with actionable intelligence; country and political risk reporting and analysis; and business, lobbying, and problem resolution services. He can be reached via e-mail at mexidata@ix.netcom.com.