Thread: la plaza, or "Who's in charge here?"

[quote=In the foreword to [url=http://www.druglord.com/forewrd.html]DrugLord.com[/url], Peter A. Lupsha, professor emeritus and senior scholar, Latin American Institute, U. of New Mexico]...protection for drug trafficking in Mexico is deliberate and that is organized along administrative and jurisdictional lines. The success of Pablo Acosta in reaching the pinnacle of organized crime power was not simply the product of violent individual entrepreneurship and gang leadership ability, but was actually the result of a license, a franchise given out by Mexican state and federal government officials to drug traffickers in return for a large percentage of the take and other services. Thus, Poppa was among the first to understand that this was not the work of a few bad-apple politicians and policemen, but was the product of an embedded system of organized corruption that runs from Mexico City through the state capitols and government officials down to the regions where the traffickers operate. It was a system known as la plaza and [it] is useful to quote what the author has to say about this at length here, for it forms the conceptual fabric of the entire book:

• Originally Posted by "In [url=http://books.google.com/books?id=CsXg-9Xpz4sC&pg=PA94&lpg=PA94&dq=la+plaza+protection+mo ney&source=web&ots=czLSVkAjDQ&sig=xBQT2RCKmzzAnbGv vgo_iZQjeGU#PPA95,M1

  Drug Lord, pp. 93-94[/url], Poppa":14wdpcsw]For decades Mexican informants tried to explain the idea to their law-enforcement contacts in the United States. When somebody had the plaza in Mexico, it meant that he was paying an authority or authorities with sufficient power to ensure that he would not be bothered by police or by the military. The protection money went up the ladder, with percentages shaved off at each rung up the chain of command until reaching the Grand Protector or the Grand Protectors in the scheme.
  
  To stay in the good graces of his powerful patrons, the plaza holder had a dual obligation: to generate money for his protectors, and to lend his intelligence gathering abilities by fingering the independent operators - those narcotics traffickers and drug growers who tried to avoid paying the necessary tribute. The independents were the ones who got busted by the Mexican Federal Judicial Police, the Mexican equivalent of the FBI, or by the army, giving Mexico statistics to show it was involved in authentic drug enforcement. That most of the seized narcotics was then recycled - sold to the favored groups or outrightly smuggled by police groups - was irrelevant. The seizures were in fact made and there were headlines to prove it.
  
  Sometimes, the authorities would protect their man from rivals; other times they would not, preferring a variety of natural selection to determine who should run the plaza. If the plaza holder got arrested or killed by the authorities, it was sometimes because he had stopped making payments, or because his name had started to appear in the press too frequently and the trafficker had become a liability. Sometimes international pressure became so strong that the government was forced to take action against a specific individual - regardless of how much money he was generating for the system.
  
  It was a system that enabled the Mexican political and police system to keep a lid on drugs and profit handsomely from it at the same time.

"As a clever allegory, it shows that Mexico's drug kingpins are, in truth, simply the replaceable cogs used and exploited by an official system of political and governmental corruption and control. Replace Pablo Acosta's name with that of any drug trafficker, past or present, and it is the same story."[/quote:14wdpcsw]

Originally Posted by In [url=http://www.bilaterals.org/article.php3?id_article=3808

"Free trade fuels drug smuggling"[/url], Houston Chronicle writer James Pinkerton]In Nuevo Laredo, criminals wanting to get in on the act must pay tribute to the gangs who control the territory, known in Spanish as "la plaza."

"We have information that one cartel is charging $20,000 a week if you want to smuggle undocumented aliens," said Alonso Peña, special agent in charge of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in San Antonio.

Cartel enforcers also extort payments from legitimate business operators, he said.

"If you’re going to shine shoes in Nuevo Laredo, you are going to pay a tax to somebody," he said. "The cartels control everything. Restaurants, businesses - they have to pay protection money so their businesses won’t be messed with."

Traffickers use their profits to buy posh homes, late-model SUVs, weapons and communications gear, U.S. agents say. They also try to sway media coverage of their turf battles.

But the violence goes on, whether it makes the morning paper or not.

"I think the struggle for control will continue until one group maintains an advantage or until there’s a truce," said Hinojosa, the DEA agent. "The violence is ongoing, and it doesn’t appear that it’s subsiding."

Originally Posted by In [url=http://books.google.com/books?id=RFQUjWeZNVQC&pg=PT187&lpg=PT187&dq=la+pla za+protection+money&source=web&ots=J-RD95EE-C&sig=6i_Q1k0611dJWKVvamgf1pbG-QI#PPT203,M1

The River Has Never Divided Us: A Border History of La Junta de Los Rios[/url], p. 208, Jefferson Morgenthaler]Manuel Carrasco is notable as Ojinaga's first violent, unpredictable borderlands drug lord. He is also notable because he advanced the drug-smuggling business model; he was the first Ojinaga operator to have the plaza. The critical question in a Mexican drug-dealing town is "¿Quién está manejando la plaza?" -- literally, "Who is managing the town square?" but figuratively, "Who's in charge here?"

The plaza is a drug-dealing franchise granted by powerful government officials. There might be more than one plaza in a busy area -- for example, one overseen by the military and the judicial police and another under the jurisdiction of the governor and the state police. That arrangement can create healthy -- or deadly -- competition.

On the local level, it sometimes appears that the dealer controls the police or the local military. He becomes a drug lord, openly ruling the town. But even the most powerful drug lords have controllers, people who provide money or protection -- bigger drug lords, oligarchs, generals, governors, attorneys general, presidents. At this higher level, the police and the military control the drug lord. Controllers want to remain in the background, and they prefer to give the plaza to someone who understands the importance of circumspection. It is acceptable for the drug lord to become known, for that draws attention away from the controllers, but it is a bad idea for the drug lord's profile to become too high, lest someone wonder who his controllers might be. If the plaza holder steps out of line, the controllers will arrange for his replacement. Preferring to avoid direct involvement, they might create a powerful competitor, or they might signal law enforcement that the dealer's immunity has been stripped. Then they let nature take its course.

Manuel Carrasco was the first person to hold the Ojinaga plaza. He owned the mayor and he bribed the local military commander, but he did not control the municipal police . . .

The success of Pablo Acosta in reaching the pinnacle of organized crime power was not simply the product of violent individual entrepreneurship and gang leadership ability, but was actually the result of a license, a franchise given out by Mexican state and federal government officials to drug traffickers in return for a large percentage of the take and other services.

And we're going to help fund Mexico's supposedly 'war on drugs' at its borders with a billion dollars? Sounds like it will be going right into the Mexican elite's pockets instead.