Thread: Why no big drug bosses this side of border?

Why no big drug bosses this side of border?
Latin America may say they exist, but U.S. experts insist it's too risky

Latin Americans bristle when Washington points a finger south and lectures about drugs.

They note that when the U.S. government talks about which cocaine cartels operate in Mexico or Colombia, officials tick off foreign drug lords' names, preferred smuggling routes and sometimes even the tattoos they sport.

But when it comes to what is going on in the United States — the world's biggest consumer of illegal drugs — federal agents and police catch a lot of dealers but never snare Mr. Big, or even acknowledge he exists.

Where is a real-life Tony Montana, the Miami drug baron portrayed by Al Pacino in the classic movie Scarface?

What about an American version of Pablo Escobar, the Colombian who was known for his gold-plated bathroom and was the most infamous cartel boss ever?

"I certainly would love to see where is the Pablo Escobar of Texas," Colombian Vice President Francisco Santos, who was once kidnapped by Escobar, said on a recent visit to Houston. "I would love to know."

Former Mexican President Vicente Fox shared Santos' concern.

"That is the question I always ask myself," Fox said recently by phone from California. His speaking tour comes to Houston next week. "Who crosses or permits the drugs to be crossed at the border, and when on the U.S. side of the border, who transports the drugs to the markets of this great nation?"

The sideways glances continue as the nations try working together more closely than ever, and that includes a proposed $1 billion U.S. government aid package to help Mexico fight drug trafficking.

"This is a way for them to turn the situation around on the United States," Bruce Bagley, a University of Miami drug-trafficking expert, said of the concerns shared by Santos and Fox. "They are feeling under siege as the United States is harping against their organizations and their inability to catch them."

No widespread corruption
American drug fighters say that for a variety of reasons, the biggest of bosses stay out of the United States.

"You don't have prominent cartel figures here. Our law enforcement efforts are too good. Our intelligence is too good and we don't have the vast corruption," said Fred Burton, a former federal anti-terrorism agent who is on Gov. Rick Perry's Border Security Council.

James Kuykendall, a retired Drug Enforcement Administration agent, said big-time dealers want to avoid the type of scrutiny they'd draw in the U.S.

"If you get too flashy, there is a red flag," he said. "We do not pursue it as well as we could, but we seem to do better than most Latin American countries."

Kuykendall pointed to how the drug cartels follow the lead of legitimate corporations to stay out of trouble.

"When you get to the supply end, it is one dude in charge of everything," he said.

Even if larger-than-life kingpins aren't in the United States, the Justice Department holds out numerous arrests of mid-level traffickers. And two men charged with running cocaine empires from Mexico have been handed over to the United States for prosecution in Houston's federal courthouse.

Drawing parallels to mafia
Osiel Cardenas is accused of heading the Gulf Cartel and threatening to kill an FBI and DEA agent he and his soldiers caught on the streets of the Texas-Mexico border city of Matamoros.

Cardenas, who was later arrested in Mexico, remains in the U.S. government's custody pending a May trial, but his gold-plated gun, cowboy boots and bulletproof vest will remain south of the border, where they are displayed at Mexico's version of the Pentagon.

Juan Garcia Abrego ran the same cartel years ago, but was caught and handed over to the United States. He is now serving multiple life sentences at the federal "supermax" prison in Colorado.

Eduardo Valle, a Mexican commentator who once led a Mexican-government task force that tried to capture Garcia Abrego, said it is naive to believe there are not at least powerful regional drug bosses that take care of business in the United States.

He pointed to the way the Italian-American mafia used to have a grip on the nation's underworld, and said it is likely that tradition has continued with other groups who maintain well-established distribution networks needed to move billions of dollars worth of drugs.

An indictment against Cardenas doesn't seem to put his feet squarely in the United States, but indicates that over the phone and in other ways, his instructions were followed.

The document traces drugs and money from Mexico through Houston and on to other points in the United States. Authorities charge that over a five-month period in 2001, about $41 million in drug proceeds was counted at a hideout in Georgia.

Peter Moskos, a professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York and a former police officer, said it is hard to fathom how perhaps billions of dollars could be handled by the drug cartels without high-level players on U.S. soil.

"There has to be someone on this side making the big bucks off it — it is not the low-level drug dealer on the corner," Moskos said.

Mervyn Mosbacker Jr., a Houston lawyer who has served as the region's top federal prosecutor, said drug bosses realize if they're going to stay free, they've got to avoid the United States.

"They can't bribe enough people, and it is not their environment; they got control of their cartel through a number of different means — that doesn't mean they can control wherever they go," he said. "There is no reason for the cartel guys to come into the United States," he continued. "Even if there was, there is too big of a risk."

Lt. Gray Smith, with the Houston police narcotics division, said the city sits at the heart of a major pipeline for sneaking drugs from Mexico to the East Coast and other areas.

He noted while there are no Pablo Escobar types, about 14,000 people a year are arrested in the Houston area on narcotics charges, ranging from possession of less than a gram of cocaine to several thousand pounds of marijuana.

Among the biggest differences in running a drug syndicate in the United States versus Latin America is that here there are just pockets of corruption, while in Latin America entire systems are dirty enough to let bosses control their local village or even a federal government.

"It is apples and oranges," he said of comparing the environment for crime in Latin America to the United States.

Kingpins 'a dying breed'
Still, Colombia's Santos said, there has to be someone in charge.

"To a certain extent, you never see one of the big drug cartels or drug lords that distribute cocaine on the streets of New York or Houston or Los Angeles being caught," the vice president said.

He said he doubts bosses would be far from the money they are making in the United States. "Where is that money? Who is managing it? I don't know."

Bagley said cartel leaders have learned to diversify and depend on alliances with smaller groups.

"We just don't produce large-scale, larger-than-life capos as they do in Latin America," he said.

"My analysis is there will be fewer of them," Bagley said. "They are a dying breed ... there are too many people willing to squeal on you, and you draw too much attention."

dane.schiller@chron.com

Most recent comments

Manofmystery wrote:
How about the Kennedy family? Oh wait...we're talking about drugs and not booze.

Centenario wrote:
THE US DRUG BOSSES ARE HERE - THE CIA BEING ONE OF THEM.

DellDale wrote:
According to the History channel, most of our drug laws were introduced, in part, because of racism. The lawmakers felt that minorities had weak self control when it came to drug abuse and therefore made drugs illegal.

NotAPlaya4U wrote:
I agree with legalizing, but that might take a lot of funding away from our own CIA. AH HA HA HA HA. Legalize marijuana at least. Cocain is only good if you're too drunk to stand and you're spinning out of control.

Too bad pharmaceutical companies will never let it happen, or big tabacco and alcohol. Must be nice to have the purchased ear of politicians.

This country is digging its own grave with the way it does politics, and they call other country's systems corrupt. What a joke.

Waves wrote:
"We do not pursue it as well as we could, but we seem to do better than most Latin American countries."

What we do here is a dog and poney show at best - just a better dog and poney show than the Latin American Countries - big deal, the bottom line is our war on drugs stops nothing, changes nothing, and has solved nothing - but it does cost us Taxpayers a heck of alot. I say to heck with it, if Joe Six pack wants to become Joe-drugy, as long as it't only hurting Joe it's Joe's buisness not mine - I don't care. Especially if we could start putting some of the wasted war on drugs money to better use in our country. If Joe can go get drugs cheaper and I don't have to shoot his sorry behind when he tries to steal my car or break into my home - even better. As long as what Joe does, does not involve harming anyone but Joe - rest assured I could care less.

http://chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5198339.html

Anyone who thinks there are no drug kingpins in the U.S., have their heads in the sand.

What street seller or middle man can accept multi-multi-million dollar drug shipments?

What street seller or middle man can accept ton sized marijuana shipments?

If the U.S. government really believes this crap, they are dumber then I thought!

Drugs are big business! These guys are set up better than Wal-Mart and probably make more money.