Mexican Cartels and Their Integration
into Mexican Socio-Political Culture
by Chris Eskridge
University of Nebraska
An earlier version of this paper was presented at the International Conference
on Organized Crime: Myth, Power, Profit, October 1999, Lausanne, Switzerland.
The author wishes to thank Brandon Paeper, Brittawni Olson, Ann Marie Lambert,
Denise Olson and Pat O'Day for their help, assistance and insight.
Table of Contents
Abstract
Background
Introduction to the Drug Cartels and The Drug Wars
The Mexican Drug Cartels Today
The Rise of the Mexican Drug Cartels
The Mexican Political Scene: An Historical Perspective
The Mexican Political Scene: A Contemporary Perspective
Institutionalized Corruption
Certification
Impact of the Drug Trade on the Mexican and American Economies
The New Markets
Stopping Them
Conclusion: The Future
The Unanswered Questions
Post Script
Endnotes
References
Index
ABSTRACT
Mexican Cartels and Their Integration
into Mexican Socio-Political Culture
This paper examines the entities known generally as the Mexican drug cartels,
explores the current state of political affairs in Mexico, and looks to the
possible future activities of these organizations. Operating in a country with
weak democratic traditions and a fragile economy that is highly dependent upon
the drug trade and external funding, they pose a present and continuing threat,
and will surely not disappear any time soon. Rather, they seem to be deeply
imbedded in the current Mexican socio-political, economic scene. The Mexican
cartels have emerged as formidable enemies and have the potential of seriously
challenging the very sovereignty of the Mexican state. Their impact is felt in
the United States as well, with many U.S. officials now calling them the premier
challenge facing U.S. law enforcement in the 21st century. The American drug
fighting certification program is examined, as are other ways of responding to
the cartel threat. Unless substantive efforts are undertaken on both sides of
the border, the Mexican cartels will continue to grow in strength and influence.
Mexican Cartels and Their Integration
into Mexican Socio-Political Culture
BACKGROUND
The United Mexican States (EUM) consists of 31 states and a federal district.
The nation encompasses 756,000 square miles and has a population of nearly
100,000,000. The capital, Mexico City, lays claim to being the largest city in
the world. Seventy percent of the citizenry live in urban areas. Though blessed
with abundant natural resources, a bountiful agricultural production capability
and more billionaires than any nation in the world outside the United States,
nearly half of the citizens live in poverty, with fully one-fourth living in
extreme poverty. Though strides have been made in the past decade, Mexican
physical infrastructure and medical facilities can both still be classified as
underdeveloped.
For the past 70 years, the country has been ruled by a quasi-elected President
who serves one, six-year term, and a two house legislative body. The upper
house, the Senate, consists of 64 individuals (2 from each state and the federal
district) elected to one, six-year term. The lower house, the Chamber of
Deputies, consists of 500 individuals elected to one, three-year term. Though
legally permitted to initiate revenue measures and pass the budget, the
legislative body has generally not done so and has evolved to a point today
where it is has relatively little political clout. The 31 states also have very
little political power.
Though the Constitution of 1917 divided power between the executive, legislative
and judicial branches, in practice the country is perhaps more accurately
classified as an autocratic party-state system. For the past 70 years, all major
political officials have come from one political party, the Institutional
Revolutionary Party or PRI. Only in the past few years has the PRI experienced
any challenge of consequence, most particularly being the 2000 Presidential
victory of PRI-opposition leader Vicente Fox.(1) Despite several euphoric
eulogies from the press subsequent to that election, the PRI is alive and well,
and will most surely mount a comeback, as evidenced by its recent victory in the
Tabasco gubernatorial elections (AFP, 10/18/00)
The key "player" in the de-facto Mexican political scene is the
president. Mexican presidents have successfully strengthened their office over
the course of the last 70 years and now enjoy tremendous power. There are few
legitimate internal checks and balances to Mexican presidential power at
present. Among other functions, they select their successors to the Office of
President, approve legislative and state gubernatorial candidates (de-facto
appointments), select the attorney general, select high-ranking military
officials, select supreme court justices, select the head of the PRI Central
Executive Committee (the de-facto ruling body of Mexico), and regularly by-pass
the legislature and issue executive decrees or orders ("reglamentos")
that have the effect of law.
As noted above, the Mexican political system has evolved into a benevolent
autocratic model; interestingly a form of government that appeared, at least in
1887, to be rather attractive to future United States President Woodrow Wilson,
as outlined in his famous essay, "The Study of Administration,"
(Wilson, 1887).
There is nothing particularly sacrosanct regarding representative, checks and
balances democracy. Western civilization has moved in this direction, but the
benevolent autocratic model may be the next phase in the evolution of political
sovereignty. As Amin (1997) would argue, Mexico, as well as any other nation,
should be allowed to "negotiate the terms of its interdependence" with
the rest of the world. Echoing much the same sentiment, Samuelson (1999) has
argued that we in America cannot "refashion the rest of the world in our
image," and that it is the height of arrogance to suggest otherwise. By the
same token, it must be noted that the nature of the autocratic party-state
governmental arrangement in Mexico and the socio-economic culture in which it
operates, taken in toto, lends itself to systematic corruption and
infiltration by organized crime interests. It is this writer's perspective that
the contemporary Mexican socio-economic political fabric suffers not just from
an infiltration, but from a saturation of organized crime
interests.
INTRODUCTION TO THE DRUG CARTELS AND THE DRUG WARS
Endless and eternal is their name. The drug wars in the Americas continue, with
nothing even resembling a denouement on the horizon. After experiencing
some success in its fight against the Medellin and Cali cartels of Colombia,
American law enforcement and military officials began to focus their efforts on
the Mexican drug cartels in the mid-1990s. The bells and whistles were brought
out, Congressional Committees examined the issues, and numerous public relations
statements were released by the Clinton Administration. Consider the following
statement made in 1997 by Thomas Constantine, then Director of the Drug
Enforcement Administration (DEA):
"These sophisticated drug syndicate groups from Mexico have eclipsed
organized crime groups from Colombia as the premier law enforcement threat
facing the United States." (Constantine, 1997)
The efforts proved to be far too little and too late. Despite American law
enforcement undertakings through the mid-1990s, the Mexican cartels managed to
consolidate their power bases, gained some control over the media, co-opted
government officials at every level on a wholesale basis, and even killed a
number of local and national government leaders.
Governments have notoriously short attention spans. Despite the in-roads made by
the Mexican cartels and the 1997 decision by the Clinton Administration to focus
on them, American law enforcement attention has now (late 2000) been diverted to
Colombia and to what the Clinton Administration deems a more pressing problem.
Two left-wing terrorist groups, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC)
and the National Liberation Army (ELN), have picked up the drug trade gavel
dropped by the Colombian cartels, and are now running the show. With perhaps as
much as a $600 million a year income, these two narco-terrorist groups, some
20,000 strong, pose a legitimate external threat to the sovereignty of Colombia.
These groups have accumulated more than $5.3 billion in the past eight years,
primarily through the drug trade ($2.3 billion), but also via kidnaping ($1.8
billion) and extortion ($1.2 billion) (Criminal Organizations, May 1999).
They are better armed than the Colombian military, and appear ready to take on
the government in full-pitch battles (Hammer and Isikoff, 8/9/99). They may in
fact be adhering to the tactical terrorist philosophies of Frantz Fanon (1982)
and Carlos Marighella (1985), a philosophy that proved successful in the
overthrow of Cuba some 40 years ago. In response, the Colombian government has
launched "Plan Colombia," a $7.5 billion effort to take out the drug
traffickers and restore order to this beleaguered nation. The matter has become
more convoluted due to the recent emergence of a powerful right-wing entity, the
Self-Defense Force. This group formed as a response to the Colombian
government's inability to successfully deal with the left-wing entities. Run by
Carlos Castano, this vigilante group has turned to taxing cocaine and heroin
producers, shippers and distributors to generate the revenue necessary to
finance its military operations. Some experts suggest the Self Defense Force now
ironically generates more revenue from the drug business than does FARC and ELN
combined (Frontline, 4/20/00). It will be most difficult to wean the Self
Defense Force from this new-found wealth, and they paradoxically loom on the
horizon as a threat to the sovereign government of Colombia from the political
right.
American aid has poured into that beleaguered nation to the tune of $250 million
this year, ranking it third behind Egypt and Israel. There are currently more
than 200 U.S. military personnel and 100 federal law enforcement agents
stationed in Colombia. The U.S. National Drug Control Policy Director Barry
McCaffrey visited Colombia during the summer of 2000, and committed to
additional $500 million per year aid package, bringing the total U.S. government
support of "Plan Colombia" to $1.3 billion. The end result of this new
drug war is that the Mexican drug problem has now been placed on the proverbial
back burner. President Fox has continued to seek American cooperation/assistance
in the drug wars, but sensing its lowered priority in the Ameican political
agenda, he has turned his attention southward and called for a unified Latin
American effort to deal with the trafficking. While currently little more than a
call for action, he seems determined to cobble together some type of unified
Meso-American anti-drug initiative. Interestingly, he seems to be working most
closely with Colombian President Pastrana in developing a solid political base
for the notion (Associated Press, 10/9/00).
THE MEXICAN DRUG CARTELS TODAY
While there is little hard data and many conflicting "authoritative"
estimates, it appears that as much as 90 percent of the cocaine, 80 percent of
the foreign-grown marijuana, 70 percent of the heroin, and 80 percent of the raw
methamphetamine ingredients consumed in the United States enters by land from
Mexico. For a period of time, the Colombians supplied the bulk of the drugs to
the Mexicans, who then trans-shipped those products primarily into the United
States. The Mexicans began by-passing the Colombians and going directly to
Bolivian and Peruvian suppliers during the summer of 1997. Many have continued
to move in that fashion, but the Colombians have now returned as the Mexican
cartel's primary supplier of heroin and cocaine.
There are probably a dozen Mexican syndicates that are involved in the drug
trade. The six primary Mexican syndicates with international capabilities
currently operating are as follows(2):
1. The Gulf (or Matamoros) Cartel - This cartel was run by Juan Garcia-Abrego,
but he was captured in January of 1996 and convicted in Texas in October of that
year.(3) This was the strongest of the border-based cartels until his arrest.
Oscar Malherve emerged as the next leader of this cartel, and due to his Juarez
Cartel connections, seemed poised to move the Gulf Cartel back into a position
of prominence, but he was arrested in 1997 and remains behind bars as of this
writing. It is thought that the Gulf cartel is now run by Oziel Cardenas Guillen.
The Gulf Cartel is based in south Texas (Brownsville and Laredo) and
northeastern Mexico (Tamaulipas) and controls the gulf region, as its name
implies. Abrego and company had been transshipping as much as 1/3 of all the
cocaine used in the United States, but that number has dropped a bit of late.
They have a brand name on their product - "Rolex," suggesting a high
grade of cocaine. Money came in so fast and furious that the Gulf Cartel
leadership literally did not know what to do with it. Foolishly, Abrego placed
$1.3 billion into an American bank checking account, which only served to bring
him to the immediate attention of American law enforcement officials.(4) He was
allegedly worth around $15 billion at the time of his arrest. He owned hotels,
real estate and an air taxi service in Texas, and even more extensive holdings
in Mexico including newspapers, hotels, construction firms, lumber companies,
moving businesses, ranches, real estate (Reuters, 9/29/96). He was tied to Raul
Salinas, the brother of former Mexican President Carlos Salinas (president from
1988-1994) (Reuters, 1996). As of this writing, Cardenas is making significant
strides in re-establishing this cartel as a major player once again.
2. The Juarez Cartel - This cartel was run by a former Mexican federal police
commander, Rafael Aguilar, and Amado Carrillo Fuentes. Fuentes died in June of
1997 while undergoing plastic surgery. Leadership of this cartel is currently
being contested, but Adado' brother Vicente seems now to have gained control.
This syndicate has historically controlled the middle area of the Mexican/United
States border. There were two factions to this group, but they came together
under Fuentes, who by 1997 was grossing as much as $200 million a week. Under
Fuentes, the Juarez Cartel rose to dominance in Mexico. They were smuggling four
times as much cocaine as the other cartels combined (Larmer 3/10/97). When
Fuentes passed away, the cartel probably had $25 billion in assets hidden away.
Fuentes was also expanding into methamphetamines and money laundering ventures
at the time of his death. The late September 1999 arrest by U.S. officials of 93
persons associated with this cartel, as well as the seizure of $25 million in
cash and assets and the loss of 12.5 tons of cocaine and 2.1 tons of marijuana
will surely set this cartel back.
3. The Tijuana Cartel - This cartel is run by the four Felix-Arellano
brothers, wanted for the brutal 1993 murder of Catholic Cardinal Juan Jesus
Ocampo (Reuters, 5/25/93). In early 1998, they combined forces with the strong
central Mexican group, the Sonora Cartel run by the Caro Quintero family of
Guadalajara, and formed a new organization they call, "The Federation"
(AFP, 2/16/98). The Sonora Cartel was founded by Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo,
who although imprisoned, appears to still be a major player in the new formed
Federation, in part because he is the uncle of the Felix-Arellano brothers.
Gallardo has long been known for advocating cooperation between the cartels.
This group now has the potential to be the most powerful of the Mexican cartels.
4. The Herrera family - In some ways, this is not really a cartel per se, but an
old time Mexican mafia family akin to the Camorra of Naples or the Black mobs of
the eastern United States. They have many operations in Mexico itself. Herrera
family representatives have also operated in New York, Boston, Louisville,
Philadelphia, Dallas and Oklahoma City, with Chicago serving as their primary
American hub. One estimate places over 1,000 Herrera family cocaine and heroin
dealers in the United States (AFP, 12/6/97). This organization is based in the
city of Durango in the state of Durango, and is really a confederation of
roughly six families. They are enmeshed in the local socio-economic, political
scene, and the family basically controls the state. As Abadinsky (2000:257) has
pointed out, "the Herrera's did not buy off the power structure in Durango
- they are the power structure." Members of this syndicate are generally
all tied by blood and/or marriage, and as a result, the group has been almost
impossible to infiltrate. The family head gives to the poor, plays the role of
loving community godfather at many funerals and weddings, builds water and sewer
systems, puts in street lights, builds hospitals. They supply America with
so-called "Mexican mud" (brown heroin), and have done so since at
least the mid-1940s. Opium is grown in the state of Durango, which explains to a
large degree why they got into and stayed in that business. For a while, the
Herrera's were running Colombian cocaine into the United States for the Medellin
and then the Cali Cartels. They have now apparently opted out of the current
cocaine battles and seem to want to just deal in their "Mexican mud"
trade and be left alone. To a great degree, the "Mexican mud" market
is a different market than the "China white" market. The other
syndicates generally do not contend with the Herrera clan. The Herrera's are
just too well enmeshed in Durango, the poppies are grown there, and the family
is too well connected. The family has in essence established a vertical monopoly
in the areas of production and distribution.
5. The Hank family - A second family syndicate, the Hank Family, has
been emerging of late as a powerful player in the drug trade. A recent U.S.
government report stated that the Hank family has been so closely linked to drug
trafficking that they are now seen as a serious threat to the United States (AFP,
6/2/99). This group is headed by Carlos Hank Gonzalez who is best known for his
expansive and profitable transportation, construction, and financial empires in
Mexico. He has also been said to hold significant influential power within the
PRI. Carlos Hank Gonzalez and his two eldest sons, Carlos Hank Rhon and Jorge
Hank Rhon, have been the target of a American investigation since 1997. The Hank
Corporation, known as "Guapo Hank", has purchased or maintained
control over several American banks, investment firms, transportation companies
and real estate properties, and is involved in the gambling industry. Hank
Gonzalez is a former mayor of Mexico City and held two separate cabinet posts
under former President Carlos Salinas. It is alleged that his eldest son, Carlos
Hank Rhon, launders drug money and had been closely associated with Amado
Carillo Fuentes - the late head of the Juarez Cartel (AFP, 6/2/99). Carlos Hank
Rhon has also been associated with Raul Salinas, the former president's brother,
who was himself linked to drug trafficking and was ultimately convicted of the
murder of one of his brother's political rivals. Jorge Hank Rhon, the younger of
the two sons, lives in the northern border town of Tijuana and is a close
associate of the Felix-Arellano brothers, the leaders of The Federation. Jorge
is less discrete in his criminality than either his older brother or his father
and has earned the reputation of being "ruthless, dangerous, and prone to
violence against his enemies" (AFP, 6/2/99). Mexican Foreign Minister
Rosario Green has rejected the accusations laid against the Hank family and has
called such allegations nothing more than pure defamation laid against Mexico's
top officials and business men. A far more likely scenario is that the Hank
family may well have aligned themselves with The Federation, bringing a
significant amount of resources and connections to an already extremely powerful
entity.
6. The Mexican Military - While not recognized for many years in the academic
community, the Mexican military has been heavily involved in the marijuana trade
for decades. Recent works have begun to surface which speak to this issues
(Morris, 1991; Nadelmann, 1993), though many are in Spanish. A recent article by
O'Day (2000) is one of the first comprehensive pieces written in English that
addresses this topic. As O'Day points out, the drug of choice of the Mexican
military is now and has been for years, marijuana. Seeing an opportunity to
carve out a literal monopoly, the Mexican military got into the marijuana
transport business as the American demand for marijuana increased in the 1970s.
Bulky and possessing a penetrating pungent odor that is virtually impossible to
mask, the movement of marijuana presents very different transport dynamics than
does either heroin or cocaine. The Mexican military, however, has the military
force to move throughout the country with impunity thus rendering moot the need
to mask the odor. It also has access to large vehicles that can easily move
large quantities of the bulky weed. The military has used these unique abilities
to their advantage, and have largely stayed out of the cocaine and heroin
business, though they do provide security for clandestine airstrips operated by
cocaine and heroin traffickers. Over the past 30 years, the Mexican military has
emerged as a major cartel in its own right, and currently has a virtual monopoly
in the marijuana transportation business. While there is little hard data, U.S.
law enforcement officers stationed on the U.S.-Mexican border have long noted,
"where the Mexican army goes, dope flows." Marijuana is grown
year-round in Mexico and the army has literally tons of harvested marijuana at
its disposal, and even oversees the production and crop security end of the
process in some regions.
It appears that each Mexican military regiment operates somewhat independently
and there is a de-centralized flavor to the operations, though high-ranking
Mexican military generals are clearly involved (Dillon, 1998). This would
suggest at least some semblance of an organizational hierarchy, where orders
move down the chain of command, and money moves up. One of the results of
Operation Casablanca, a U.S. government undercover operation undertaken in the
late 1990s, was the acquisition of several tapes, one of which featured then
Mexican Secretary of Defense Enrique Cervantes seeking ways to launder $150
billion. Many have suggested, on the basis of vast circumstantial evidence
though there is still no hard evidence, that this flow of "cannabis
cash" reaches up to the office of the Mexican president. What is clear is
that the Mexican military are heavily involved in the transportation of
marijuana and that they will use force to protect their business. In a chilling
video, aired for the first time on American national television by PBS on
October 10, 2000, a squad of elite Mexican national police officers who came
upon a shipment of marijuana, are gunned down by a squad of Mexican army
personnel. The video further revealed that the army regiment was deployed in a
strategic military context to protect the clandestine airstrip (Frontline,
10/10/00).
In the past few years, the Mexican military has become more and more aggressive
in the border regions, shaking down ethnic Mexicans with impunity, regardless of
citizenship and regardless of which side of the border they were on. Numerous
accounts are filtering in of camouflaged Mexican military units crossing the
"Rio Grande" and carrying out their business on the American side of
the border (see AFP, 11/03/00). In January of 2000 for example, there was a
running fire fight near El Paso, Texas between several U.S. law enforcement
officers and several Mexican military personnel who had driven across the border
in broad daylight. Outgunned by the military personnel, the U.S. officers had to
retreat. By the time they returned with more firepower, the Mexican military
personnel had finished their business and driven back across the border.
O'Day (2000) provides numerous case studies of Mexican military operating north
of the border. "What is surprising," he writes, "is the open and
singularly aggressive demeanor of the Mexican soldiers [who are] on American
soil." In conjunction with the American law enforcement community, they are
turning both sides of the border region into a de-facto military zone, with all
the accompanying infringements and abuses spawned by such a demarcation.
Continued movement in this direction will threaten the very foundation of
Mexican democracy.
THE RISE OF THE MEXICAN DRUG CARTELS
The Mexican cartels originated in response to a demand for smuggling both people
and contraband into the United States in the 1920s and 1930s. The cartels began
operating as middlemen smugglers for more powerful groups. With smuggling
networks in place, the 1970s saw the cartels branch out on their own and begin
to smuggle the high demand drug, marijuana, into the United States. In the 1980s
the Colombian drug cartels rose to power, and they needed a way to bring cocaine
into the American market. The Caribbean routes were used, but so were routes
through Mexico. In the beginning, the Colombians would pay the Mexican groups as
much as $1,000/kilo to smuggle cocaine into the United States. The Colombians
would then pick up the drugs and resume distribution and sales efforts. This
arrangement brought the Mexican cartels wealth, but little power or control of
the drug trafficking market.
This arrangement did not last long, and a number of meetings were held between
Mexican and Colombian cartel leaders in the early 1980s, shortly after the
connection was made. These meetings were arranged by the Honduran drug
trafficker, Matta Ballesteros. Ballesteros worked with both the Colombian
Medellin Cartel and Mexican smugglers. Ballesteros (currently serving a life
sentence in United States for drug trafficking), introduced a number of Mexican
cartel leaders to one of the founders of the Medellin Cartel, Rodriguez Gacha
(killed by police in 1989). Gacha, nicknamed "the Mexican," was very
impressed with the efficient Mexican smuggling operations and felt comfortable
doing business with them. His deal making shifted more and more of the cocaine
trade routes from the Caribbean to Mexico.
In the early 1990s, United States anti-drug operations kicked in and began to
focus on the Colombian-Caribbean drug smuggling connections. The Colombians were
forced to smuggle increasing amounts of cocaine into the United States through
Mexico. The pressure on the Colombian cartels was mounting. The Mexican and
Colombian cartels began another series of meetings. At one such meeting, in
January of 1992, Cali Cartel leaders Miguel and Gilberto Rodriguez-Orejula
decided that Juarez Cartel leader Carrillo Fuentes would arrange to fly planes
loaded with cocaine directly from Colombia to Mexico. Carrillo Fuentes would
eventually earn the nickname, "Lord of the Skies" for his diabolically
brilliant ability to deliver literally tons of cocaine. Fuentes became a master
at smuggling drugs not only with planes, but also with boats and trucks and
people.
Smuggling through the Mexican cartels continued to grow throughout the early
1990s. Instead of merely dumping the cocaine in warehouses just across the
border, the Mexican cartels became so powerful that they could guarantee
delivery anywhere inside the United States. New deals were in the making between
the Colombian and Mexican cartels.
In the early 1990s, the head of the Gulf Cartel (the most powerful Mexican
cartel at the time) Garcia-Abrego, secured a major deal with the Colombian
cartels that increased the Gulf Cartel's power even more. Instead of paying with
cash, the Colombians would forfeit half of their cocaine shipments to Garcia-Abrego
who then took the risk of selling, but also took the profits (Lupsha, 1995:90).
By 1994 this became the standard business practice of all Mexican cartels
(O'Brien and Greenburg, 1996; Wren, 1996). This deal was a major turning point
in the fortunes of the Mexican cartels. With this new business arrangement, the
power and wealth of the Mexican drug cartels exploded. The Mexican cartels set
up their own cocaine distribution networks in cities such as Houston, Dallas,
New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Denver. The Colombians agreed to all of this
as long as Mexican cartels would leave the Colombian markets in Miami, and the
bulk of the east coast to the Colombians.
In the summer of 1995, the Colombian cartels fell under a renewed attack and
received even more pressure from the Colombian National Police, who were aided
by the American CIA and DEA. The police tracked down and arrested seven Cali
Cartel leaders, including the Rodriquez-Orejula brothers. They tried to run
their organization from prison, but failed. William Rodriguez, son of Miguel,
was chosen to run the Cartel. He was so offensive that those with whom he was
making deals wanted to kill him. He was forced into hiding and the Cali Cartel
split up into small, separate businesses. While the Colombian cartels were
dividing, the Mexican cartels were consolidating.
The Juarez Cartel, run by the then extremely powerful Carrillo Fuentes, became
even stronger after Gulf Cartel leader, Garcia-Abrego, was arrested in January
of 1996. Garcia-Abrego's replacement, Oscar Malherve, allied himself with
Fuentes, making Carrillo Fuentes Mexico's drug kingpin.
Carrillo Fuentes continued to work on gaining even more power. Most of the coca
crop is grown in Peru and Bolivia and then taken to Colombia to be turned into
the final product, cocaine. Fuentes arranged for eight multi-ton shipments to be
flown from Bolivia straight to Mexico. Fuentes intended to cut Colombia
completely out of the picture. The Cali Cartel, although down, still had an
intelligence operation in tact. They quietly notified the Bolivian authorities
of the shipments, leading to the seizure of 4.1 tons of cocaine by Bolivian
authorities on September 26, 1995.
This blow could have brought the cartels into an all out war, and it would have,
if not for the wisdom of Carrillo Fuentes. Fuentes realized that a war among the
cartels would only hurt and weaken them. He also knew that a war would give the
scattered remnants of the Cali empire something to rally around, which could
possibly re-unite the Cali Cartel fragments and return the Colombians to the
powerful drug trafficking dynasty they once were. Fuentes called for a series of
new meetings in neutral sites. In these meetings, Fuentes (actually represented
by Gulf Cartel leader Oscar Malherve) told the Colombians that he would continue
to deal directly with Peru and Bolivia. He would bypass Colombia because of the
unstructured and unstable cartels in Colombia at the time. He proposed a new
plan for business with Colombia. The plan basically allowed the Colombians to
take their cocaine as far as Mexico, where they would be paid in cash for it.
This meant that the Mexican cartels now had almost complete control of the
cocaine trade in the United States, the largest cocaine market in the world. The
Colombian profits would take a dive, but they would be alleviated of some of the
risks involved in the business.
By 1997, many new, small organizations were jumping into the cocaine market in
Colombia. Instead of cooperating, they competed with each other which left the
market and the power structure quite fragmented. The Mexican cartels took
advantage of this arrangement and soon took control of the entire market. By
1997, it appeared that Colombia's drug cartels were going to die out. General
Rosso Jose Serrano, director of the Colombian National Police, said in 1997,
that Carrillo Fuentes's Mexican organization was overpowering the Colombian drug
organizations. It was "... by far the strongest cocaine-trafficking group.
He is the one who buys and distributes everything" (Farah and Moore, 1997).
Carrillo Fuentes was on top of the world. He had left the Colombians in the
dust. He was making an estimated $200 million a week and was smuggling four
times as much cocaine into the United States as all the other Mexican cartels
combined. As would later be revealed, Carrillo Fuentes even had Mexico's law
enforcement drug czar, Gutierrez Rebollo, in his pocket. He developed a grand
master plan and began to put it into effect:
1. Cut Colombia out of the picture with respect to the cocaine trade by dealing directly with Peruvian and Bolivian suppliers.
2. Move into the methamphetamine market.
3. Move into the money laundering trade.(5)
4. Maintain tight contacts with Mexican government officials.(6)
The plan was never able to be fully realized, for on July 4, 1997, Carrillo
Fuentes died while undergoing plastic surgery. He had undergone plastic surgery
in the past, and was attempting to further alter his appearance to conceal his
identity from American government authorities. There was some thought at the
time that he may have been purposefully killed on the operating table, but it
now appears that he simply died due to surgical complications. As a result of
his death, the Juarez empire and its immense cocaine market was up for grabs,
and a war broke out to seize control. Mexico experienced 40 to 50 gangland
slayings in the following six months (Reuters, 2/13/98).
The small Colombian organizations used that time to re-assert themselves. A
number of groups by-passed Mexico, and set up Puerto Rico as the transshipment
site of choice. The Puerto Rican syndicates took only 25 to 40 percent of the
cut, and packages sent to the United States from Puerto Rico (an American
possession) were not inspected as closely as those coming in from other
countries. Some success was achieved, but the Puerto Rican connection suffered a
major blow however, in August of 1999 when 58 persons, including a number of
American Airline personnel, local Puerto Rican law enforcement officials, a
federal employee, and the son of Puerto Rico's chief law enforcement official
were arrested on drug trafficking charges (AFP, 8/26/99).
At this writing, the Colombians have been unable to consolidate themselves, and
the "cartels" are little more than small, drug-running gangs. There
are thought to be about 300 such entities at present, and they really have no
other option but to run their cocaine and heroin through Mexico. The fact that
the American cocaine market is experiencing a sharp decline is certainly
complicating matters.(7) A number of the Colombian drug gangs have now abandoned
the American market, and have turned their attention to what is fast becoming a
literal drug supermarket - Europe and Central Asia.
Meanwhile, the Mexican cartels, after a period of upheaval subsequent to
Fuentes' death, seem to have stabilized. At present, it appears that the cocaine
trade has dichotomized, with power being shared by Oscar Malherve and the Gulf
Cartel in the east, and the Federation in the west. Again, the September 1999
arrests by U.S. officials of 93 Juarez cartel associates mentioned previously,
along with the loss of drug supplies and millions in currency will surely serve
to weaken the Juarez cartel and further strengthen the Gulf Cartel and The
Federation.
The shrinking cocaine market in America has forced the cartels to aggressively
(and successfully) exploit other underworld markets, as will be discussed. They
have historically demonstrated a remarkable ability to adapt, just as the
American syndicates demonstrated in the post-Prohibition era, and unfortunately
appear to have a bright future. Before examining those new markets, however,
there is a need to review the current state of the Mexican political scene so as
to better understand the context in which the Mexican drug cartels now find
themselves.
THE MEXICAN POLITICAL SCENE: AN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
As has been noted, Mexico has been governed by one political party, the
PRI (Partido Revolucionario Institucional or Institutional Revolutionary Party),
for 70 years. The PRI was founded by former Mexican President Plutarco Calles in
1929 and further developed and strengthened by President Lazaro Cardenas
(1934-1940). It was originally called the National Revolutionary Party and took
its current name in 1946. The party was created in an attempt on the part of
officials at that time to bring a sense of stability to a beleaguered nation,
and to seek a more conservative socio-economic evolution (ie. slow the rate of
change) in the post-Diaz era. The PRI was wildly successful and eventually
blended in with the government, evolving into the present autocratic party-state
system, which has brought Mexico a relative measure of domestic peace over the
past 70 years (see generally, Meyer and Sherman, 1979).
To better understand why the contemporary Mexican political system functions as
it does requires a more detailed historical discussion. Mexican politics was
dominated for some 35 years by Jose de la Cruz Porfirio Diaz who served as
President from 1876 until 1911 (with a four year hiatus from 1880 to 1884).
Adopting the role of benevolent autocrat, he saw Mexico through a period of
general economic growth, peace, and prosperity. A series of circumstances,
including a growing public demand for democracy, resulted in him being forcibly
removed from office in May of 1911 by Francisco Madero. As Diaz was being
escorted away from Mexico City into exile, he reportedly said, "Madero has
unleashed a tiger. Now let's see if he can control it."
Diaz's observation proved to be tragically profound. Less than two years later,
President Madero was removed from office and executed, and the nation plunged
into a dark decade of violence. More than 1.5 million people were killed during
the second decade of this century; approximately 12 percent of the Mexican
population. Brutality and calloused disregard for life became the norm for rebel
and soldier alike. Rebel leaders such as Emiliano Zapata and Poncho Villa
captured the public's attention and generated a significant measure of popular
support. In the 10 years subsequent to Madero's death, 11 different men served
as president. A Constitution was ratified in 1917, giving more political power
to the central government, largely in an attempt to quell the violence. In an
historical context, that move is now generally viewed as having been successful.
Open hostilities abated by 1920, but the new decade saw extreme political
turmoil, intrigue, and occasional assassination. In 1929, the turning point in
modern Mexican political history, President Plutarco Elias Calles organized the
National Revolutionary Party (the precursor of the modern PRI), returned to the
benevolent autocrat model that had been implemented so well for so long by Diaz,
and smoothed the transition of power process by instituting a closed system of
selecting political successors.
The current Mexican model of federal executive leadership is the outgrowth of
policies put in place by President Calles in response to two decades of extreme
unrest. Its basic tenents have remained unchanged for 70 years, and have become
more deeply entrenched in the Mexican political culture. Only now, at the close
of the 20th century, with memories of the decade of violence confined to the
history books, have democratic interests begun to again stir in the Mexican
populous. Given the disastrous results of their previous flirtations with its
principles, Mexico's reluctance to move toward a legitimate model of democracy
is somewhat understandable.
It must be re-emphasized that the current model of Mexican governance is the
result of nearly 120 years of socio-political evolution; the model is deeply
imbedded in the Mexican political psychic and the general political landscape.
There will certainly not be any abrupt divorce decree nor a sudden wholesale
embrace of grassroots democracy. The cultural traditions and political
infrastructure are simply not in place.
Today, the PRI Central Executive Committee still controls the party and the
state. The Chair of the Central Executive Committee is appointed by the
President of Mexico. The primary function of the Central Committee is to prepare
nominations for all important "elected" government positions. Once
nominated in this party-state system, the PRI candidate is all but elected.
There is a public election, but it is little more than a public relations
exercise designed primarily to placate the international community. Even if the
citizenry were to vote an opposition party member into office, the Senate, with
the Constitutional power to ratify elections, has been known to place the
"appropriate" PRI candidates in office, regardless of the actual vote.
This arrangement clearly institutionalizes fraud and corruption, and it has been
a part of the Mexican political environment for nearly four generations. With
only one party to please, and without opposition party whistle-blowers to
contend with, the drug cartels have been able to quietly pay-off government
officials at all levels with little fear of public reprisal. Favoritism,
corruption, and bossism are simply an institutionalized aspect of Mexican
politics. A political party with no opposition is accountable to no one. The
PRI, and thus the government, has simply been corrupted, and there is little
interest or incentive within the PRI to come clean. Any attempt on the part of
political officials to do so would likely draw the wrath of fellow PRI members
who are still on the take. Not only would their political careers be ruined, but
they would likely face life threatening opposition from both the cartels and the
government. Recent court testimony has revealed how torture, kidnapping, and
murder has been used regularly by the PRI to maintain control and generally
crush dissident voices; a model similar to that used by Joseph Stalin decades
ago (AFP, 9/3/99).
Nowhere was corruption been more blatant than in the administration of former
Mexican President Carlos Salinas, generally recognized as Mexico's favorite
person to deride (AFP, 6/14/99). The former president and his brother, Raul
Salinas, fled Mexico in 1996, at the end of Carlos' term in office. Raul has
since been apprehended and is currently serving a 27 1/2 year prison sentence
for the murder of a political rival (he is currently in a medium security prison
outside Mexico City). The sentence was slashed from 50 to 27 1/2 years by Judge
Hernandez in July of 1999 due to mitigating circumstances. Raul has spoken to
investigators and have led them to over $300 million in various European bank
accounts, at least $120 million of which has been traced to the Gulf Cartel (AFP,
12/11/97; Reuters, 3/13/98); Wall Street Journal, 3/13/98). In addition to the
murder charge, Raul Salinas is strongly suspected of being involved in various
drug activities and masterminding several other political killings. Carlos,
however, remains in a self-imposed exile in Cuba (he initially took up residence
in Ireland but has since moved to Cuba), allegedly supported by at least $600
million stashed away in Swiss bank accounts. In May 1999, he did venture a brief
3-day return visit to Mexico for the first time since fleeing the country.
Carlos's reception was not one of a revered former president but rather gave new
fuel to old fires of anger, hate, and mistrust. He has returned several
occasions since, including a visit in October of 2000 (AFP, 10/3/00). It is
suspected that he may have been using whatever political clout he had left to
influence then President-elect Fox's cabinet appointments, though Fox seems to
be making very independent and creative choices in that area (Associated Press,
11/24/00). Publicly, the purpose of the visit was to discuss the creation of a
Truth Commission that would begin to examine many of the atrocities that have
occurred in Mexico over the past several decades (AP, 10/3/00).
In the past five years there have been five very public murders in which the
organized crime interests have most certainly played a role, and they are of
particular note. In September of 2000, deputy commerce secretary Raul Ramos was
found dead in a rural area outside Mexico City. Ramos, an active PRI player, was
commonly acknowledged to have been involved for many years in a multi-national
auto-theft ring with underworld figures from Argentina and Colombia. He was
likely killed to prevent his testimony from coming forward, with both organized
crime figures and PRI officials signing off on the "hit" (AFP,
9/9/00). In March of 1994, the leading presidential candidate, Luis Donaldo
Colosio, was assassinated in Tijuana. This murder greatly unsettled the Mexican
people. The disruptive impact of his death is still evident today and
investigations are unlikely to ever fully reveal the entire scope of the
assassination plot. Different accounts have Raul Salinas, the Gulf Cartel, the
Tijuana Cartel, and various members of the PRI party behind the murder.
One month after this assassination, the very progressive and reform oriented
Chief of Police of Tijuana, Jose Fredrico Benitez, was murdered. It has recently
been revealed that Mexican federal police officers working for the Tijuana
Cartel carried out this murder.
In September of 1994, PRI heir-apparent Jose Francisco Massieu was assassinated.
A strong case has been made by a number of commentators that he was prepared to
begin a clean-up in the PRI, and that his death was consequently arranged via an
agreement between the cartels and the PRI. In a damning suicide note left by his
side in September of 1999, Jose's brother, Mario Massieu, implicated President
Zedillo in Jose's murder, a matter that will surely disrupt an already uneasy
political situation in Mexico (AFP, 9/17/99).
In June of 1999, the very popular television personality Francisco "Paco"
Stanley was killed, allegedly on orders of drug lord Luis Amezcua in connection
with drug debts (AFP, 8/27/99). More careful investigations have revealed that
Stanley maintained long, on-going relationships with known drug dealers,
including the infamous Amado Carrillo Fuentes, the notorious "Lord of the
Skies."
As long as the party-state arrangement continues, there will be little hope of
any serious law enforcement attention given to the cartels; token efforts to
please American certification requirements, yes, but no serious efforts of
consequence, and public murders of this nature as well as other inappropriate
behaviors, will continue to occur.
Consider this parallel example from another Meso-American nation. Clearly one of
the reasons that the Colombian cartels lost power in the early and mid-1990s was
because the multi-party political system in Colombia began to assert itself.
More particularly, one party began to publicly accuse the other of being
corrupt. Out of a newfound need to maintain political credibility and obtain
political capital and public confidence, significant law enforcement efforts
were undertaken by the seated Colombian government to respond to the cartels.
This was done by the government not so much out of a moral imperative to rid the
country of drug dealers, but as the means of preserving its own power, which in
a truly democratic state means keeping the citizenry happy and convinced of
proper performance.(8) Because Mexico has historically lacked a viable
multi-party system and the checks and balances that such a system brings, no
such public crack-down has occurred, nor could we realistically expect it to
occur given this backdrop. But this political backdrop is perhaps about to
change.
THE MEXICAN POLITICAL SCENE: A CONTEMPORARY PERSPECTIVE
Steps have been taken to move the Mexican political system toward legitimate
multi-party status. In the past few years, major inroads by opposition parties
led to the presidential victory of opposition party leader Vicente Fox, ending a
71 year political monopoly of the PRI. In the past, the infamous "dedazo"
or Mexican finger, was the method used by the PRI party to select its
presidential candidates. Dedazo, Spanish for "big finger," refers to
the closed, secretive method used by seated Mexican presidents to unilaterally
designate their own successors (AFP, 2/27/99). Though denied by several former
Presidents, Jose Lopez Portillo, who served as president from 1976-1982, has
publicly conceded the existence of such a practice, further noting it would
vanish "only when a president renounces it" (AFP, 2/27/99).
That time arrived in they year 2000 when then president Ernesto Zedillo stated
that he would not participate in the process of designating his own successor;
effectively amputating the finger (AFP, 2/27/99). Many wonder, however, whether
the process of dedazo truly ended. Of the six major politicians who initially
indicated their intention to run for the office in 2000, the former Interior
Secretary Francisco Labastida was widely seen as President Zedillo's favorite.
Furthermore, immediately following Labastida's resignation as Interior Secretary
(which enabled him to run in the PRI's November 1999 primary election), several
trade unions and other groups linked to the PRI party publicly declared their
support for him. Additionally, two other candidate hopefuls pulled out of the
preliminaries as soon as Labastida announced his candidacy. As expected,
Labastida easily won the PRI primary, which suggests that the rumors of the
death of dedazo were perhaps somewhat exaggerated, at least as far as internal
PRI-politics is concerned.
On August 3, 1999, after months of discussion, Mexico's two main opposition
parties [the conservative National Action Party (PAN) and the center-left Party
of the Democratic Revolution (PRD)], announced an agreement to form a grand
coalition and to present a united front for the presidential elections in July
of 2000 (AFP, 8/4/99). With significant effort, the coalition hammered out a
seven-point political platform, though many of those points have remained
vaguely defined.(9) The next exercise was to select a single presidential
nominee. This proved to be somewhat of a difficult task, for both the PAN
candidate (Guanajarto Governor and former Coca-Cola executive Vincent Fox) and
the PRD candidate (Mexico City Mayor, Cuautehmoc Cardenas) were strong
contenders. In the end, the opposition settled on Vicente Fox, and with the
support of the coalition, he defeated the PRI candidate Labastida in the July
2000 elections and took office December 1, 2000.
The selection and backing of a single candidate was a crucial decision for the
coalition. The polls clearly indicated that in the absence of a united front
from the opposition, the PRI party would not have been removed from power, even
with the public revelations of gross PRI misconduct (money laundering and bank
bailout scam; kidnapping and torture activities; assassination of Massieu and
Colosio)(AFP, 8/30/99; 9/1/99).
This grand alliance was the first of its kind in the history of modern Mexico,
and it toppled a long-reigning government. Representatives of the coalition
continue to emphasize that their goal in forming the united front was not only
the defeat of the PRI party, but also "...to achieve a peaceful transition
to democracy, (and) to achieve the just political system that the majority of
the citizens want," (AFP, 8/4/99). Time, of course, will tell whether or
not such aspirations are achieved or relegated to the garbage dump of political
rhetoric. The Mexican people, as well as the Mexican government, corporate and
civic institutions all operate with a deeply imbedded paternalistic-aristocratic
political culture that pre-dates the Spanish. Some very legitimate queries can
be aired as to whether they really have the tools necessary to embrace modern
democracy.
To date however, some very public and seemingly legitimate efforts are being
undertaken by President Fox in an attempt to steer his nation down this new
path, and he has taken a very aggressive public position on a number of fronts
since his election. Among other initiatives, he has called for the creation of a
Mexican Truth Commission to examine past atrocities and bring those responsible
to justice. President Fox is aggressively pushing the U.S. to end its drug
certification program, publicly stressing that the drug problem will not be
resolved until America addresses its own corruption problem; "as long as
the United States does not end corruption, efforts to curb the illegal drug
trade will not be successful"(AFP, 8/19/00). In response to the issue of
American corruption, he recently responded, "I ask myself how tons and tons
of drugs enter the United States without anyone noticing and how consumption
grows without anybody stopping it." (AFP, 8/19/00). In his most vocal
speech to date, on the even of his inauguration he specifically called on the
United States to accept more of the blame for the drug problems (Associated
Press, 11/27/00).
He has openly challenging the policies of the International Monetary Fund (no
doubt due to the fact that Mexico, with its August 2000 payment of $3 billion,
currently has no outstanding financial obligations to the IMF), and is
championing the development of a Latin American union built along the same model
as the European Union. Tied in to this is his call for increased privatization
of state-owned industries, and a desire to join Mercusor, the Argentine and
Brazilian dominated free-trade bloc. President Fox has also called for the
European Union to develop closer ties with Mercusor (Associated Press, 10/2/00).
More substantively, he signed a free-trade agreement with the European Free
Trade Association that will go into effect in July of 2001 . In addition, in
July of 2000, President Fox negotiated an agreement with the European Union to
in essence tear down all trade barriers between these two trading partners by
the year 2010 (Associated Press, 11/06/00). This pact with the European Union
will have monumental and far-reaching implications, effecting literally every
aspect of the Mexican social, economic and political communities, potentially
even surpassing the impact of NAFTA.
During personal visits with President Clinton, Al Gore and George W. Bush in
August of 2000, he argued for the complete opening of the U.S./Mexican border
within the next 10 to 30 years, and proposed an amendment to NAFTA which would
allow for a free labor flow between Mexico, the U.S. and Canada. He has
continued to push this "NAFTA-plus" notion and the need to create a
North American common market, and gives every indication that he intends to
continue pursing this goal (Associated Press, 11/27/00). He has also openly
challenged the United States and Canada to spend up to $30 billion annually to
close the "development gap" with Mexico so as to realize an economic
convergence between the three nations. While many of his proposals have fallen
on deaf American ears, his stated human rights agenda in the southern Mexican
state of Chiapas and the creation of the Truth Commission is clearly in line
with American political philosophy. His willingness to pump additional oil to
ease the winter 2000-2001 energy crisis, and his public support for a reduction
and long-term stabilization of oil prices is even more central to American
interests. Taken together, these (and other pro-American positions such as the
increased privatization of state-owned industry) will continue to increase his
political capital in America, and will certainly result in a number of his
initiatives obtaining increased American support (see AFP, 8/19/00; AFP,
9/22/00; AFP, 9/25/00; Cox, 2000; Smith, 2000).
In sum, Fox has embarked upon, at least in word, an aggressive anti-corruption,
pro-human rights, pro-global business position. To be successful, he will need
to take control of the economy away from the traditional Mexican power brokers,
and that will not be easy. If victorious in this effort, he will surely root out
a significant measure of the institutional corruption that has both hampered
Mexico's socio-economic development and collaterally permitted its' organized
crime syndicates to prosper for half a century.
The role of the printed press in contemporary Mexico is also undergoing a
significant shift. Perhaps the best known Mexican newspaper, Excelsior,
long sold itself to the government in exchange for price supports, massive tax
breaks, and outright payments from governments leaders. The paper had what
amounted to a government protected monopoly. Excelsior editors sold
themselves and their newspaper to the PRI in the late 1920s, and as a result, Excelsior
emerged in the 1930s as Mexico's national paper. Excelsior became one
of the primary tools used by PRI officials over the years to maintain their
power. Headlines were articulated by government leaders, and "news"
stories towed the party line. Atrocities went un-reported, as did unfavorable
economic news. Socio-economic issues of the day were ignored. There has no been
no independent Mexican press of any stature for at least 70 years. An
independent press serves as a legitimate check on the government, informs the
populous, and is crucial in the development and maintenance of a viable
democracy. With the changing political winds, Excelsior is now paying
the price for its years of prostituted reporting. Circulation and sales have
plummeted. Its credibility all but destroyed. Now more than $70 million in debt,
it may not survive. Other papers have "hit the streets," but what
remains to be seen is if a truly independent press can emerge from the ashes of
a general community mistrust of the press and help move Mexico toward a more
responsible form of democracy. Prominent Mexican news mogul Armando Sepulveda,
has said that the media now enjoys "freedom of expression, but the press
still does not know how to use it"(Associated Press, 10/31/00). It will be
some years before his "freedom of expression" assertion can be
validated, and it will be longer still to see if the Mexican mass media
successfully conquerors tradition and emerges with a new face with an
independent and powerful democratic countenance.
Mexico also has another political institution in place that has historically
protected PRI leadership and concomitantly provided a healthy climate for
syndicates to grow and flourish. A decades old unwritten rule in Mexico
prohibits the indictments of present and former Presidents and cabinet members.
Originally designed to prevent wars and unsavory politics between rivals, the
rule has outlasted its usefulness and has now become a major obstacle to
effective drug enforcement efforts. It completely insulates high-level
government officials from liability for their actions.
The United States has repeatedly called for Mexico to end the traditional
impunity for high level officials. Journalist John Anderson states,
"No law, no special task forces, no number of helicopters and chase planes
can compare to the impact that one strategic indictment would have, as every
cabinet
member, general, and police commander would suddenly be made to understand that
impunity will no longer be tolerated" (Reding, 1995).
The problem of course, is that this would be counter to the vested personal
interests of the Mexican government officials who would be asked to implement
this policy change. President Fox, however, has publicly stated that if evidence
of criminal wrongdoing undertaken by his predecessor came to light, he would do
what he could to institute legal proceedings against him (Weymouth, 2000, p.
35). What remains to be seen is if Fox is full of typical political rhetoric or
atypical substance. While there are growing opposition voices calling for the
removal of this traditional executive privilege and for the development of a
legitimate multi-party system, at this writing Mexico can still be classified as
a de-facto one-party system; a party-state system, with its accompanying twin -
institutionalized corruption (Paternostro, 1995; UPI, 1/30/98).
Current events clearly suggest that Mexico appears to be ripe for change. The
world community is certainly supportive. President Fox had his staff must now
put their plans into actual practice. They must particularly resist the powerful
and deeply entrenched forces within the Mexican culture that will attempt to
deflect this electoral revolution into a "business as usual" reality
and the continuance of the well-established governmental connections with the
region's drug cartels.
INSTITUTIONALIZED CORRUPTION
A report published by the United States General Accounting Office stated that
one of the major problems in the drug wars is the endemic, institutionalized
corruption within the Mexican law enforcement and military community (U.S.
General Accounting Office, 1996). In its 1998 annual report to Congress on human
rights, the White House noted that "corruption is rife within the ranks of
Mexico's police and members of the security forces..." (UPI, 1/30/98). In a
recent piece of investigative reporting, the New York Times broke a story
that a number of Mexican generals met with cartel leaders on at least two
occasions in 1996 and 1997. The evidence seems to indicate that bribes were
offered in exchange for the military leaders turning a blind eye to the drug
operations (UPI, 3/26/98).
Mexican police are prone to corruption for many reasons. Mexico is a major
money-laundering location because of its lack of significant regulations on
banking transactions. Due to a disastrous string of bank failures, Mexico is now
beginning to modernize its banking laws and grant its regulatory agencies
concrete enforcement powers (AFP, 9/21/99). Off the books cash flows very
freely. As much as $30 billion a year is now being laundered in Mexico (Reuters,
2/16/98). Perhaps an equal amount of money is brought into the country from the
drug trade. It is estimated that ten percent of that wealth is used specifically
for law enforcement, military and political pay-offs. Police and military
officials are paid an extraordinarily low wage roughly 3,000 pesos ($300) a
month (AFP, 8/4/99). When they are offered an entire years' wages to turn a
blind eye, or take a shot of "lead in the head," the money is taken
very readily and gladly. Bulita (1997) states, "the partnership between
drug traffickers and police is so open that it could not exist without the
knowledge of senior officials." The Felix-Arellano brothers of the Tijuana
cartel, for example, openly employ off duty (and perhaps a few on-duty) state
police as their body guards. The shear amount of money involved makes it
possible to undermine virtually all law enforcement efforts in such a poor
country.
Adding to the problem of rank-and-file officer corruption is an internalized and
institutionalized mode of corruption within the police ranks. Mexican police
commanders routinely demand incoming officers to sign over a large percentage of
their already low salaries, or risk receiving poor assignments and/or poor
equipment. In August of 1999, 26 police commanders were charged with forcing new
officers to forfeit 35 percent of their salaries back to their commander (AFP,
8/4/99). It is estimated that collectively, commanding officers in the Mexican
law enforcement community may have taken in up to $315 million pesos ($31.5
million) over the past several years (AFP, 8/4/99). While this type of
corruption is not directly tied to the drug trade per se, it establishes a
pattern and practice of corruption within the ranks that is easily mined by drug
cartel personnel, who have vast amounts of bribery funds at their disposal.
While Mexico's economic growth for 1998 was greater than expected with a gross
domestic produce (GDP) up about 4.8 percent, 45 percent of the population still
live in poverty, with more than one-fourth of the population living in extreme
poverty (AFP, 2/17/99). Additionally, the unemployment projections indicate
record levels due to the regional economic recession - an estimated 9.5 percent
unemployment rate is anticipated for 1999 (AFP, 2/28/99). Economic need also
serves as a powerful factor in explaining institutionalized corruption.
The Mexican drug cartels have accumulated such wealth and power that they have
been able to corrupt public officials all the way to the top - the country's top
drug prosecutor (Associated Press, 8/27/99), the former Mexican drug czar (AFP,
3/3/98), the former head of the Mexican Federal Judicial Police (AFP, 3/28/98),
the former director of the Mexican federal highway police (AFP, (9/26/00), the
Chief of Police in Mexico City (Reuters, 12/11/97), Mexican state governors
(Moore, 4/8/99), numerous military generals (AFP, 1/23/98; 3/3/98; UPI,
1/30/98), and even members of the Mexican foreign ministry (AFP, 2/6/98). As a
result, the Mexican people have little trust in their law enforcement and
military personnel (Associated Press, 9/17/96)/(10).
Numerous case studies provide support for this mistrust. In November of 1991,
for example, a United States Customs Service plane trailing a Mexican police
plane in pursuit of a plane transporting drugs recorded an extraordinary scene
using long range infrared video equipment. The Mexican police airplane followed
the drug transport plane to an airstrip where it stopped to re-fuel. The plane
was being serviced and fueled by Mexican military personnel. As United States
Customs officials watched, Mexican army personnel proceeded to kill all seven
Mexican police officers as they attempt to seize the drugs.
Another similar incident occurred in August of 1994, when a jet believed by
intelligence to be carrying 10 tons of cocaine landed at Sombrerete, Zacatecas.
Three trucks speeding from the airstrip were caught, accounting for 2.5 tons of
cocaine. Upon further investigation, it was revealed that Federal Judicial
Police were responsible for transporting the rest of the shipment from the
airstrip to the drug distribution centers. Despite an abundance of evidence, no
illegal or unethical activity was found to be present by an investigative panel
of Mexican authorities.
In September of 1994, 16 officers of the National Institute for Combating Drugs
were arrested for accepting bribes for overlooking cocaine shipments. In
December of 1994, newly appointed federal police chief Juan Pablo de Tavia was
poisoned in his sleep. This occurred only hours before Tavia was to propose a
plan to the Attorney General to purge the regional police of corrupt officers.
Tavia was rushed to the hospital but remained disabled for over a year after the
incident. He claimed he was certain the culprit was his chief bodyguard, who was
arrested but later had the charges dismissed. Tavia's purge of the police force
never took place (Reding, 1995). In November of 1995, Attorney General Lozano
ordered the firing of all 60 Federal Judicial Police in the State of Chihuahua
after a probe into illegal police activities by the Mexican Attorney General's
Office revealed that they were involved in the drug trade.
In August of 1996, the President of American Sanyo Video Corporation was
kidnapped and released after a $2 million ransom was paid. A Federal Judicial
Police officer was among the suspects arrested for the crime (Bulita, 1997).
Later in August of 1996, 737 members of the Federal Judicial Police force from
all levels were fired on suspicion of corruption (Reuters, 8/16/96). This purge
brought the total number of officers dismissed from the Federal Judicial Police
force between December of 1994 (when Lozano took office) and August of 1996 to
1,250, constituting 22 percent of the force.
In June of 1995, co-leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, Hector Luis Palma Salazar, was
arrested by the Mexican army in Guadalajara (Bulita, 1997). The army detained 34
police officers along with him on suspicion of protecting him. It seemed he had
turned the local police into his own private army.
High level officers are just as vulnerable to the corruption it seems. A former
head of the Federal Judicial Police force in Jalisco was arrested in June of
1993 on charges of corruption. He was working for the Sinaloa Cartel. Horacio
Brunt, the man credited with the capture of Garcia-Abrego in January of 1996,
was dismissed from his position in the August 1996 purge of corrupt Federal
officers. Former Deputy Attorney General Javier Coello Trejo was accused of
accepting $1.5 million per month by a policeman who testified during the trial
of Garcia-Abrego in Houston. Trejo was in charge of many drug trafficking
investigations under the Salinas administration.
The Mexican Attorney General's office announced the arrests of seven members of
the Juarez Cartel in May of 1997. Of the seven, all were former Mexican law
enforcement agents. Four were former police officers and the other three had
been in the Mexican military. This highlights the ability of these powerful
cartels to recruit whoever they want. They are increasingly recruiting police
and military personnel for their expertise and intelligence (UPI, 5/13/97).
One of the most embarrassing illustrations of institutional corruption in Mexico
was the recent arrest and conviction of the Mexican Drug Czar himself, General
Jesus Gutierrez Rebollo (Brant, 1997). Gutierrez Rebollo was the head of the
Mexican equivalent to the American Drug Enforcement Administration. The agency,
known as the Institute for the Fight Against Drug Trafficking, was dissolved
after Gutierrez's arrest. He was convicted of accepting bribes from Mexican Drug
Kingpin Amado Carrillo Fuentes and is now serving a 13 year plus prison sentence
(Reuters, 3/3/97). Francisco Molina Ruiz, who served as the director of the
Institute for the Fight Against Drug Trafficking just prior to Gutierrez, claims
that Gutierrez had access to every bit of information and intelligence regarding
the anti-drug efforts. This information included the identities of undercover
agents and every bit of information about the United States-Mexican intelligence
unit used to track major cartel persons. He knew the identity and even selected
Mexican policemen who were to be trained at Fort Bragg, North Carolina for
special Mexican anti-drug forces. All this information may have been passed on
to the cartels. "'Gutierrez may have done more severe damage to the war
against the Mexican drug cartels than Aldrich Ames did to the CIA's espionage
operations' said DEA official, Thomas Constantine" (Brant, 1997:36)
In January of 1998, a retired Mexican general was arrested and charged with
actually helping the drug cartels with a number of their organizational
problems. General Jorge Mariano Maldonado's arrest was the fifth arrest of a
general in Mexico since the arrest of Gutierrez Rebollo in February of 1997 (AFP,
1/23/98). In March of 1998, 68 police and military officials were arrested due
to their drug connections (AFP, 3/6/98).
The murder of the Federal Judicial Police commander in charge of narcotics
investigations in Mexico City in July of 1996 was followed by the murder of the
Federal Judicial Police commander in charge of narcotics investigations in
Tijuana in September of 1996. These murders brought the total number of senior
police officials executed in Northern Mexico in 1996 to seven. "It seems
every law enforcement agent who can't be corrupted is killed" (Bulita,
1997). In March of 1998, Adrian Carrera, the former head of the Federal Judicial
Police, was arrested when it was revealed that he had ties with several of the
Mexican drug lords. It appears as if he may have been tied with Raul Salinas and
Ruiz Massieu (former Deputy Attorney General) in facilitating the flow of drugs
and cash into and out of the country (AFP, 3/28/98).
In August of 1999, Mario Ruiz Massieu, former Deputy Attorney General and
Mexico's top drug prosecutor was charged with laundering nearly $10 million
drug-related dollars - he was indicated on a total of 25 counts. He had been
under house arrest in New Jersey for nearly four years, detained in 1995 as he
was attempting to flee to Spain. He was also accused of obstructing efforts on
the part of Mexican police to investigate the 1994 assassination of his brother,
Jose Francisco Ruiz Massieu. Jose Massieu was the leading PRI candidate in the
1994 presidential election before being gunned down in September of 1994 on
orders of Raul Salinas (as previously noted, Raul Salinas is currently serving a
27 1/2 year prison sentence for the killing). Mario Massieu was accused of
attempting to protect Raul Salinas. Days before the trial was to begin in
Houston, Mario Massieu committed suicide (AFP, 9/15/99).
A similar, though less publicly discussed account is given of the previously
mentioned March 1994 assassination of Luis Donald Colosio. Assured of winning
the election after being "fingered" by then President Carlos Salinas,
Colosio made the error of espousing the need to move toward democracy and
suggesting a need to help the poor. Colosio clearly represented a threat to the
both the PRI elite and their companions, the drug cartels, who likely ordered
his killing. In his suicide note of September 1999, former Deputy Attorney
General Mario Massieu indicated that President Zedillo was involved in the
killing (AFP, 9/17/99). Interestingly, as 1994 dawned, two men stood in the way
of Ernesto Zedillo attaining to the presidency - Luis Donald Colosio and Jose
Francisco Massieu. Both were "conveniently" assassinated; one in March
and the other in September, and Zedillo was subsequently "elected"
President.
Other high ranking government officials have also succumbed to the ready money
offered by those with ties to the drug trade. Mario Villanueva, a prominent
member of the PRI and the former governor of the state of Quintana Roo, is
wanted on drug trafficking charges and on charges of accepting a share of $300
million embezzled by the fugitive Mexican banker, Carlos Cabal Peniche. Some of
that embezzled money was also distributed as campaign contributions to several
other PRI members, namely Renato Bega from Sinaloa, Eduardo Robledo from Chiapas,
and more recent reports suggest that President Zedillo also accepted illegal
contributions from Peniche. President Zedillo himself has even admitted taking
money from Peniche, but the details are not clear (AFP, 5/30/99).
In response to this admission, Mexican opposition parties have demanded that
President Zedillo be subpoenaed in connection to potential illegal contributions
received from Carlos Peniche (AFP, 6/1/99). Peniche himself has admitted to
contributing $25 million to the PRI party, with $5 million specifically going
specifically to Zedillo's campaign. Peniche was quoted as saying,
"Donations of this kind were normal in Mexico...It was part of the system
between businessman and politicians. Everyone had to do it..." (AFP,
5/30/99). This matter is of grave concern to the PRI at present. In the midst of
a heated campaign for the first time in its 70 year history as has been
discussed, the matter has spun out of control. In September of 1999, the Mexican
Congress asked the Mexican Supreme Court to intervene and force Zedillo to
reveal the exact nature of his relationship with Carlos Peniche. It is widely
believed that Peniche's bank, Banco Union, assisted in laundering the donations,
and then wrote them off as bad debts through the deposit insurance fund (FOBAPROA),
which in essence allowed Peniche's bank to re-coup those funds by drawing upon
tax dollars. Carlos Peniche is currently being held in Australia and awaiting
extradition to Mexico, where he will face charges of fraud. He is accused of
embezzling in excess of $700 million (AFP, 9/9/99).
Another recent high profile case of note involves former AeroMexico official
Gerardo de Prevoisin. Extradited from Switzerland to Mexico in late September of
1999, he faces a series of fraud charges. Interestingly, Prevoisin readily
admits to having withdrawn millions of dollars from AeroMexico accounts, but
claims he did so as ordered by then President Carols Salinas, who instructed
Prevoisin to "donate" the funds to the PRI party's 1994 election
campaign (AFP, 9/24/99).
It should be emphasized that United States officials are certainly not immune,
and have also been corrupted in numerous instances as well. In 1994 sheriffs of
two border counties were jailed along with a county clerk and a county judge.
They face federal corruption charges for allowing drugs to cross the border. In
May of 1996, two United States Customs agents were charged with conspiracy for
their roles in a plan to bring 1.2 tons of cocaine into the United States. At
least seven United States Customs agents, including a former district director
and a supervisor found themselves under investigation as a result of a February
1996 probe. Three American Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS)
inspectors in the San Diego area have been convicted or brought to trial on
charges of conspiracy and taking bribes. In a recent highly publicized case, the
wife of U.S. Army Colonel James Hiett has been charged with smuggling cocaine
out of Colombia into the United States (Watson, 1999).
CERTIFICATION
One of the external political problems facing the Mexican government is that the
United States conducts an annual evaluation of some 30 of its trading partners'
drug fighting efforts.(11) This annual certification carries the specter of
rather significant economic sanctions befalling those who fail to pass.
Specifically, if a country does not receive certification, the United States
government threatens to re-examine its overall trading relationship with the
de-certified nation, the de-certified country is barred from receiving American
financial aid, and the United States will vote against that country receiving
loans from the six international multilateral development banks. Additionally,
the United States will reject financial support from the Export-Import bank for
American firms seeking to set up businesses in the de-certified country (see
generally, Jones, 1999).
This unilateral certification process is the quintessential example of
condescending arrogance, smacks of blatant imperialism and is clearly based
solely on American self-interests. At least with respect to Mexico, it is little
more than a lever to force American political, socio-economic policy onto its
less powerful North American neighbor. The matter has greatly irritated many
Third World nations upon which the United States government continues to pass
unilateral judgement. The hypocrisy of the United States, the worlds' largest
consumer of illicit drugs, passing judgement and issuing sanctions if other
nations refuse to fight the drug war in ways the United States itself refuses to
do, is not lost on leaders both north and south of the border (AFP, 2/27/98;
McMahon, 1996; Moore and Anderson, 1996). Many American officials and political
observers recognize that there are no objective certification standards, that
the process is extremely arbitrary, and has more to do with political winds than
substantive effort and progress (AFP, 2/27/98).
There are those, however, who defend the process, believe that it should be
maintained, and feel specifically that since Mexico is not doing enough in its
war on drugs, that they should be de-certified. Among other voices, United
States Senators Paul Coverdell and Dianne Feinstein want to see Mexico more
aggressively cracking down on drug barons and assisting in extraditing them to
America. They, among many others, would also like to see DEA agents be allowed
to carry weapons into Mexico while on assignment (Reuters, 10/22/97).
Congressmen John Mica from Florida recently stated, "I will work to
de-certify Mexico this year because the corruption is endemic from the lowest
levels to the highest levels in that country and they still fail to cooperate to
the degree I believe is necessary" (Reuters, 2/6/98).
During the 1999 certification process, however, neither Mica nor Feinstein
challenged President Clinton regarding the re-certification of Mexico, although
both publicly indicated that they still had serious reservations about the
decision. The most vocal critic during the 1999 re-certification process came
from House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt who was quoted as saying, "Mexico
has not done enough to meet the requirements of our law" (PST, 3/1/99).
Also voicing strong opinions against re-certification of Mexico was the Chair of
the House of International Relations Committee, Republican Congressman Benjamin
Gilman. The 2000 certification also had its foes on Capital Hill. To some
extent, the matter was lost to the press and public during the American
presidential campaign. It was not lost to U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison of
Texas, however, who called for a moratorium on the certification process to give
time for the newly elected presidents of both countries to consider new
proposals (AFP, 9/22/00).
Similar to the model established in previous years, at the proverbial 11th
hour before the 1999 certification decisions were to be revealed by President
Clinton, then Mexican Interior Minister Francisco Labastida, announced a $500
million anti-drug strategy that would be implemented over the next three years (AFP,
2/4/99). The strategy involves the cooperation of 13 departments which will use
electronic sensor technology designed to detect fields of narcotic plants, to
find narcotic shipments and to track suspicious airplanes and vessels. In
addition, the strategy will utilize satellite photography and specialized
computer systems in order to coordinate land and sea tracking efforts. While the
timing of such announcements is certainly suspect, the Mexican government's
efforts have seen some results of late. In August of 1999, for example, Mexican
authorities seized an 8.6 ton shipment of cocaine off their west coast (AFP,
8/18/99). In the first eight months of 1999, Mexican authorities had seized 850
tons of marijuana, 25 tons of cocaine and 1,500 pounds of opium base.
While the internal debates continue in this country as to the appropriateness of
the certification process, the United States continues to hold this stick of
economic sanctions over the collective heads of its trading partners. Mexico has
long resisted this certification process, calling it nothing but a public
relations scam (Reuters, 2/4/98). Mexican officials, in reaction to Clinton's
threat of de-certification in 1997, lashed back, accusing the world's biggest
drug consumer of hypocrisy. At the 11th hour however, Mexico capitulated. Less
than 36 hours before the deadline, Mexican officials miraculously captured the
head of the Gulf Cartel, Oscar Malherve, and publicly burned a ton of equally as
miraculously recently captured cocaine.
It should be pointed out that there is more to this game than may meet the eye.
Mexican officials certainly engage in the selective targeting activity out of
necessity - to offer up an occasional sacrificial lamb to please the American
certification gods. But Mexican leadership also benefit from this charade, for
they use it as a smoke screen to help the cartels with which they have become
aligned. The Mexican leadership will, rather hypocritically, use the national
stage and national resources to dismantle a cartel, always a cartel that is a
rival to is cartel partner. By removing their partner cartels' competition in
this almost amusingly self-righteous show of public and military force, greater
profits will be realized by their partner cartels. Eventually a percentage of
those funds will be floated back to the political leadership. The certification
process has allowed the PRI leadership to play one cartel against another and
enrich itself. And over the years, the PRI has been a most fickle friend. It has
a history of turning on former cartel partners as quickly as the wind might
change direction. Former Gulf Cartel king-pin Garcia-Abrego, for example, even
publically noted the audacity of the Salinas administration coming after him
after he arranged with Raul Salinas to have two anti-Salinas candidates killed.
Rather than playing such games and suggesting that the winds of change may have
truly reached Mexico's shore, President Fox (the first non-PRI president in 70
years) has forcefully and unilaterally called upon the United States to totally
abandon the drug certification program, noting that it serves no useful purpose
(AFP, 9/22/00; Weymouth, 2000, p. 37). In its place, he proposes the development
of a multilateral evaluation system. Time will proverbially tell if this
proposal is seriously considered by the American leadership. At present, it does
not seem to be playing well in the Washington, D.C. political marketplace.
All of the Mexican cartels do need to cooperate to some degree in the annual
certification process, even those that the government turns on, if they want to
survive in the long run. From the long-term perspective, the Cartels can
certainly take the hit of a leader or two going to prison, and they can easily
absorb the loss of a portion of its stockpile; even a 50 percent commodity loss
in the cocaine trade will yield a profit. The Mexican economy needs American aid
and business dollars more than it needs cartel money, though having both would
be the best of both worlds. At this point the Mexican leadership is successfully
achieving that end. American aid continues to flow into the government coffers,
external investment is up, and the drug revenues are as high as ever. It appears
as if the cartel leaders, even those who are not in partnership with the Mexican
leadership, are willing to play along with the certification game, to give
themselves up from time to time for a token arrest, and to let a small cache of
their drugs be publicly "captured" and burned to achieve a positive
public relations effect. This allows the Mexican government to continue to play
the plausible deniability game, and to placate the United States political
leadership for a season.(13)
Recent events have shaken the relationship between the U.S. and Mexico however.
While the 1998 case against the Amezcua brothers (the current methamphetamine
"kings") was trumpeted as evidence of improved cooperation between the
U.S. and Mexico in the binational anti-drug battle, current problems in the case
and with other similarly "botched" cases are upsetting the already
tense relationship between the two countries (Christian Science Monitor,
5/23/99). Amezcua Contreras was released from a Guadalajara Prison on May 19,
1999 after a judge ruled that the state was trying him under a new
drug-laundering law that did not exist at the time of Contreras' alleged
offense. In a similar case in May of 1999, a Mexico City judge stayed the
extradition order for Jose de Jess Amezcua who is wanted in the U.S. on drug
trafficking charges. A third Amezcua brother, Luis, still faces drug-trafficking
charges in the U.S. On May 21, 1999 the extradition of Oscar Malherve to the
U.S. was also denied. He was arrested in 1997 while driving with $2 million in
cash in his car. Malherve is considered by the U.S. DEA to be the second most
powerful drug trafficker in Mexico. He operated the Gulf Cartel after the arrest
of Garcia-Abrego in 1996, but its leadership is now in the hands of Oziel
Cardenas Guillen as noted previously. The commutative handling of such cases has
raised questions about the legitimacy Mexican attorney general's work and about
the operation and efficiency of the Mexican judicial system in general (Christian
Science Monitor, 5/23/99). It is of interest to note that all of the
decisions rendered in all of these cases were made after certification decisions
for the year were already in place.
The l999 certification was approved in a far less visible fashion than in either
1998 or 1997 (the Senate vote in 1998 was close, however - 54 to 45, UPI,
3/26/98; see also Reuters, 2/26/98), though the matter did draw the ire of
political leaders on both sides of the Rio Grande (AFP, 2/26/98; Reuters,
2/4/98). The flow of drugs has hardly diminished in recent months, yet the
United States has seemed to almost wink at the matter. Many have suggested that
the certification of Mexico and other Meso-American countries in 1999 was simply
done to protect U.S. business interests in those areas from likely public and
private retaliation. It may also be related to the reality that drugs are part
of the economic structure of our neighbor to the south, part of the recreational
and economic structures of the United States, and if significant efforts were
made to stem the tide, serious economic repercussion could result, for both
economies.
IMPACT OF THE DRUG TRADE ON THE MEXICAN AND AMERICAN ECONOMIES
The drug trade and the narco-dollars it generates is an integral aspect of
virtually aspect of the Mexican economy, from the boardrooms and halls of
government to the common farmers and slum dwelling "mules." While
there is no hard data, the generally accepted figure is that Mexico sees $40
billion a year from the drug trade (though it does not all come from the United
States). Consider the recent economic history of Mexico as an illustration of
just how much the drug trade is enmeshed in the economies of these two nations.
Mexico was experiencing somewhat of an economic boom in the early and mid-1990s.
The economy was growing. NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, was
showing some dividends. Mexico appeared to be poised to make a long-term run at
improving their economy. Then, literally out of the blue, in late 1994 and early
1995, the Mexican peso was devaluated and Mexico faced a huge international
financial crisis. The collapse happened almost overnight. As events unfolded, it
turns out that the financial crisis had its roots in the drug trade.
As has been previously noted, Mexican Presidents serve for one, six year term.
The Mexican President from 1988 to 1994 was Carlos Salinas. He and his family
had drug syndicate connections, as noted above, and allowed drug money to flow
into the country relatively openly. With access to these vast sums of money, the
Mexican government had no problem in meeting its international financial
obligations. The next President of Mexico was to be Ernesto Zedillo. He was very
much a crusader and a reformer, and during his campaign indicated an intention
to rattle the status quo. As he was readying to enter office, the drug kingpins
became legitimately worried that things would not be business as usual, and
pulled their money out of the Mexican economy. As a result, the entire Mexican
economic structure became de-stabilized.
The United States, in an attempt, among other things, to salvage NAFTA, had to
put together a $20 billion loan package and stabilize the Mexican economy in
February of 1995, an economy that was dependant on the "coca-buck." In
addition to the macro-economic implications, there were numerous political
killings, and street crimes skyrocketed during the "coca-buck" pullout
period. With the peso devaluation came inflation, which destroyed the dreams of
what was becoming a relatively large and stable Mexican middle class. Drug money
was, and still is, literally ingrained in the socio-economic structure of
Mexico, as it is in so many other countries in this world.
The result of this episode was a total re-assessment in Washington D.C. The
United States and then President Zedillo both backed off from their hard-line
approach out of a fear that such a policy would continue to disrupt the
social-economic fabric of Mexicans daily life, have an adverse effect on
Mexico's international fiscal position, and most notably, have an adverse effect
on Mexico's ability to pay its foreign debt, including the $20 billion owed to
the United States (Reuters, 5/7/97). With the kindlier and gentler attitude in
place, the drug lords began to return their "coca-bucks" to the
Mexican economy.
Miraculously, in January of 1997, 3 years early, Mexico paid off the last of the
$20 billion it borrowed to stabilize its economic free-fall (Blustein, 1997; Wall
Street Journal, 3/16/97; see also Shaffer, 1996).
A new economic crisis lies in Mexico's very immediate future, however. On the
one hand, a number of economic indicators are solid. The peso is stronger than
it has been in more than a year (currently trading at roughly 1:9.3 in terms of
American dollars), the Mexican stock market index (the Bolsa index) is up,
currently around 5,650 - up from the 4,750 mark just a year ago but down from
its high mark a few months ago of 8,400, direct foreign investment will reach
$20 billion during the year 2000 (AFP, 10/2/00), and the federal budget contains
a surplus in excess of $900 million (boosted of late due to increasing world oil
prices). The major economic problem is a bank bailout issue, the scope of which
dwarfs the country's financial capabilities.
Mexico's banks have historically been basically un-monitored and very poorly
regulated. When the value of the peso dropped in 1994-1995, interest rates rose
and billions of dollars in bank loans went unpaid. To avoid a complete economic
meltdown, the Mexican government was forced to bailout the failed banks. As
mentioned previously, in a positive context, the Mexican banking regulatory
agencies have since been reorganized and other banking industry rules have been
instituted in hopes of avoiding such a crisis in the future (AFP, 9/21/99).
These new laws reorganization efforts have come much too late to avert the
present crisis however. Vicente Corta, the Executive Secretary of IPAB (the
newly created equivalent of the American FDIC), now estimates that the bailout
will cost the Mexican government $93.4 billion - nearly 20 percent of the
nations' annual gross domestic product.
Interestingly, from the very beginning, Standard and Poor's estimated the
bailout to be closer to $106 billion (see generally, Associated Press, 9/3/99).
When the crisis was initially made public, the government and the PRI stuck to a
$59 billion figure, even in the face of Standard and Poor's estimate. They
stayed with the lower figure in light of stiff complaints from the increasingly
visible political opposition that the bailout was an attempt on the part of the
government to protect rich bankers at the expense of Mexico's primarily poor
taxpayers. The matter became all the more politically charged when it was
revealed several months ago that a significant portion of the delinquent loans
that will now be paid off with tax dollars were campaign donations to the PRI
(Associated Press, 9/1/99). Standard and Poor's very public higher estimate and
the presence of an opposition political party capable of effectively
communicating those higher (and certainly more accurate) figures to the body
politic simply forced the Mexican government to revise its figures.
In the face of this pending crisis, Mexico will soon receive a $23.7 billion
financial aid package from the IMF, the World Bank, the U.S. Eximbank, the
Inter-American Development Bank, the U.S. Federal Reserve and the Central Bank
of Canada. This will help the government to confront the challenges linked to
the bank bailout, and to intervene and stabilize markets in case of a currency
crisis (AFP, 6/15/99). In addition, given that financial turmoil has often
accompanied changes in the presidency (most recently the above noted Salinas to
Zedillo transition), these funds will be able to ease any economic disruptions
that may arise during the next transition.
But the fact remains that the Mexican economy needs the estimated $40 billion
plus that flows into the country from the drug trade. Those dollars are integral
to the current Mexican economy, and because of that, an anti-drug cartel
position carries no political capital in Mexico at present. There will be no
public interest in ridding Mexico of the cartels, at least until a replacement
for the lost $40 billion can be found. Any serious effort to root out the
cartels likely needs to await the emergence of a greatly improved Mexican
economy; they are just too deeply entrenched within the fabric of the Mexican
socio-economic culture.
THE NEW MARKETS
The Mexican drug cartels gained their power by monopolizing the lucrative
cocaine trade, but cocaine use in the United States has began to slide in the
late 1990s, from 6 million users in the mid-1990s to an estimated 1.7 million in
1998 (Reuters, 3/19/98). As a response to this changing market, the cartels will
need to both diversify, and get involved in other markets. At this point, they
seem to be adjusting. For the first time, they are bringing large quantities of
cocaine into the Mexican market. According to recent estimates, 4 percent of the
citizens of Mexico City now use cocaine, up from an estimated 1.6 percent just
four years ago (Reuters, 3/19/98). Drug use in Mexico has risen from an
estimated 1.5 million users in 1988 to 2.5 million users in 1998, with the
largest increase occurring among children (AFP, 7/4/99).
A recently published Mexican government report found that Mexicans are taking
more drugs at younger ages and are beginning to favor low-grade cocaine over
marijuana. The report indicated that the average age of those who have consumed
some type of stimulant at least once is between 10 and 12 years old. While
marijuana is still the most popular drug in Mexico, cocaine is no longer far
behind, and is now reaching new populations, such as the children and the poor.
According to the same government report, there are now approximately 20,000 drug
dealers in Mexico who sell their products in more than 8,000 schools just in
Mexico City alone. It is suggested that the dramatic drug use increase is due in
part to the same factors long identified in the United States - increases in
immigration, the increase in the unemployment rate, low wages, a rise in the
number of teenage parents, lack of education, and breakdown of the home (AFP,
7/4/99). There is a decided downside to this trend. By moving into the drug
trade in their own country, the cartels will run the risk of turning their own
people against them. At present, there is no anti-cartel sentiment among the
Mexican populous, and that fact has a great deal to do with the longevity and
vibrancy of these organized crime entities. The need to maintain that passive
populous sentiment will, in the author's opinion, likely keep the major cartels
out of the domestic drug consumption business. They may in fact, muscle in on
small entities who try and develop a domestic drug consumption market and shut
them down so as to protect/maintain the passive public sentiment.
The Mexican cartels have also been extremely successful in exploiting the new
American methamphetamine market, and have emerged as the dominant force in this
area, as noted by then DEA Director Thomas Constantine - "The major Mexican
trafficking groups control and coordinate all aspects of the methamphetamine
business" (Constantine, 2/27/97). Commenting on the move to the meth
market, Constantine indicated:
"The shift...was a brilliant business decision by these organizations.
Unlike the cocaine business, where traffickers from Mexico are just one link in
a chain,
meth is one rung they can control from beginning to end. And because they are in
complete control, they can keep 100 percent of the profits."
(Constantine, 2/27/97)
The Mexican drug cartels have become the dominant force in the United States
methamphetamine trafficking. Meth production does have its problems(12),
however, but with the proper equipment it is relatively easy to make, has a
significant profit margin (as much as 1:10; see Arax and Gorman, 1995), and is
going through a huge surge in popularity in the United States. In just over four
years the meth business has been transformed from a series of small operations
run by motorcycle gangs to a gigantic international market. The market was
wrested away from the biker gangs in a somewhat bloody, but brief war. Mexico is
now the major producer, though it is thought that the Mexican cartels still use
the American motorcycle gangs to transship the basic ingredients into the United
States, where labs convert those ingredients into meth. The Mexican cartels
control perhaps 80 percent of the American meth trade, and appear to now be
expanding operations into Asia, Europe, and the Middle East.
The majority of the Mexican meth trade has been controlled by a
Guadalajara-based organization run by the Amezcua brothers; Jesus and Luis. This
group may have joined forces with the Federation to expand networks and
marketing capabilities. This group is Mexico's largest importer of ephedrine and
supplies the other cartels with the finished product, methamphetamine. The
Amezcua brothers have been buying ephedrine in every major producing country in
the world including China, India, Germany and the Czech Republic. The raw
materials are smuggled into the United States, where meth labs, typically made
up of both legal and illegal Mexican immigrants, produce the finished product.
The workers typically refuse to cooperate with American law enforcement
authorities when captured, knowing that the Cartel leaders will harm their
family members who are still south of the border.
Some meth labs are capable of producing $2 million worth of meth per week.
Usually meth by-products are dumped near the facility. It costs an average of
$25,000 to clean up a meth production lab site. United States officials
uncovered the magnitude of the meth trade in 1994 simply by chance. Customs
officials at the Dallas/Fort Worth Airport found 3.5 tons of ephedrine on a
plane from Switzerland bound for Mexico. The plane had been re-directed to
Dallas because of bad weather. This discovery led to an investigation which
determined that between June 1993 and December 1994 some 170 tons of ephedrine
had been shipped to Mexico. That amount could yield 136 tons of meth, and would
be enough to supply 12.4 million users with three, 10 milligram doses a day for
a year. American government seizures of meth have been increasing dramatically
in the West and Midwest regions in the past year.
There is another interesting market seeing tremendous growth along the
Mexican-American border - people smuggling. This is not a new market of course,
but the scope of this industry is expanding of late, and has the potential to
even surpass the drug trade in time. On April 1, 1997, a new and much tougher
immigration law went into effect - that date has been called "Black
Tuesday" in Mexico (Reuters, 4/17/97), and it has had long repercussions
for many, many Mexican families. Consider the following account:
"For many Mexicans, migrating north in search of work is not a criminal act
but an annual rite born of economic necessity. Any United States attempt to
protect
its borders, or any mistreatment of Mexican immigrants, raises howls of protest.
Zacatecas state is a leading source of migrants to the United States with seven
percent of its 1.3 million people north of the border at any one time and $240
million a year in remittances coming home. Migratory traditions here run deep,
started primarily by tumbling silver prices at the turn of the century....
Current migration patterns began during the world wars, when there were labor
shortages
in the United States. From Jerez, most immigrants gravitate toward Los Angeles,
Chicago and San Antonio.... 'You can't knock on a door in this city (Jerez)
without finding one of us who has a cousin, an uncle, a friend, a brother ... we
all have someone there. It has been an important factor in our economy,
unquestionably.'" (Reuters, 4/17/97)
The result of the new immigration law has been a marked increase in the people
smuggling trade. With more than $6 billion a year of much needed U.S. currency
pouring into the Mexican economy from legals and illegals working north of the
border, half of which likely comes from illegals (the so-called 'wet-back
dollars'), American law enforcement can expect little serious help from the
Mexican government in this arena (AFP, 10/30/00). This point warrants
reiteration. Dollars sent home by Mexican workers located in America have become
a crucial and integral component of the Mexican economy, surpassing American
investment in Mexico by nearly one billion dollars per year (AFP, 10/30,00).
While a charade may be undertaken to placate the Americans, there is no rational
reason for the Mexican government to mount any kind of substantive effort that
would inhibit the flow of these much needed dollars.
"Coyotes," generally operating with a small independent organization,
have historically had a monopoly on people trafficking.(14) Seeing a huge profit
margin as a result of the new immigration law, Mexican syndicates have been
moving into the people smuggling trade in a more systematic and organized
fashion, either taking over "coyote" operations or forcing them into a
business arrangement. There is new evidence that the Mexican cartels are also
beginning to do business with the Chinese Triads and are now smuggling illegal
Chinese immigrants into the western hemisphere (AFP, 2/27/98; AFP,
8/31/99)/(15). A recent episode involving two low-ranking American military
personnel attempting to smuggle a group of Mexicans across the border near
Tijuana may only be considered a singular episode (AFP, 10/13/00), but people
smuggling has the potential to overtake the drug trade in terms of gross revenue
and profitability in the 21st century. This will especially be the case if the
gap between the developed nations and under-developed nations continues to
expand.
It has been estimated that nearly 1.4 million illegal immigrants cross the
border from Mexico into the United States each year. Nearly 600,000 are caught
and deported annually (AFP, 9/9/99). The overall estimate of the total illegal
immigrant population in the U.S. ranges from 5 to 6 million, and is growing.
People smuggling is now a $900 million a year enterprise - interestingly almost
twice the budget of the U.S. Border Patrol. A ride across the border that cost
an illegal $200 a few years ago now runs anywhere from $800 to $1,200 (see
generally, Zarembo, 1999). In May of 1999 Mexican authorities dismantled a
human-smuggling ring operating out of Ciudad Juarez which ended in the arrest of
27 people who specialized in the transportation of would-be illegal immigrants
into the U.S. (AFP, 5/19/99). It is estimated that 5,000 people per month enter
the United States illegally just from Ciudad Juarez alone (AFP, 5/19/99). In
September and October of 2000, U.S. immigration officials, in cooperation with
officials from at least five other countries, arrested 38 alleged smugglers and
more than 3,500 illegal immigrants in Operation Forerunner. Nearly all of the
arrests took place on foreign soil in an attempt to counter the long legal
battles that take place when illegals are arrested having once arrived in the
United States (Benjamin, 2000).
The face of the typical immigrant has been changing over the last few years.
Migrant workers were at one time predominantly male; this is no longer the case.
A "femininization" of the migration trend has been taking place (Christian
Science Monitor, 4/22/99). The Immigration and Naturalization Service, which
began tracking illegal immigrants' gender in 1992, has reported that the number
of females apprehended on the Southwest border has increased every year since
1994 to a high of 173,870 for the 1998 fiscal reporting year (Christian
Science Monitor, 4/22/99).
The human trafficking business is becoming increasingly dangerous and violent,
particularly along the southern California border near San Diego. In 1993, prior
to the implementation of the more aggressive border patrol efforts, 23 migrants
died attempting to enter the United States. Some died due to more natural cases
(drowning, dehydration, cold weather), but others died due to violence. In 1998
this number skyrocketed to 145, and to 325 in 1999. The figures will surpass 400
for the year 2000 (AFP, 9/27/00). U.S. estimates are that some 1,300 Mexican
illegals have died in their attempts to cross the border since 1994.
Criticism and finger-pointing has become commonplace on both sides of the Rio
Grande. A number of human rights groups have become involved, and the Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace recently issued a report that was critical of
both governments. The Mexican government has undertaken some efforts to address
this issue. Some ten years ago, a special Mexican border police force, Grupo
Beta, was created. Initially stationed in Tijuana, officers are now spread
across the entire border region. Its charge is not so much to stop the illegal
immigrants, but to protect them and inform them of the dangers. Grupo Beta has
come under intense criticism of late, however, particularly in July of 2000 when
three Beta officers who did not know how to swim were forced to simply watch as
two illegals drown in the Rio Grande. This event was filmed by a television
camera crew and elicited a significant outcry from the Mexican community (LaFranchi,
2000). In the first four months of the year 2000, the Beta officers reported
that they assisted more than 12,000 illegals who found themselves in
life-threatening situations. These numbers would suggest that the flow is far
beyond what the Beta Group can handle. "All we can do is act as a voice of
conscience to encourage these people to avoid danger, but the deaths will
continue because people are desperate," says Grupo Beta coordinator Agua
Preita (LaFranchi, 2000, p. 2).
The United States attempted to legislate itself out of the problem a decade ago.
The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 allowed for nearly 4 million
illegals (the plurality of whom were from Mexico) to permanently stay in the
U.S., apply for citizenship and ultimately bring in close relatives. It was
thought that this would stem the flow of illegal migrants, but that has not been
the case, for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is the American
desire for cheap food. While hard data is impossible to obtain, it is generally
accepted that up to 80 percent of the farm workers who pick the 200 different
crops grown in America (worth $15.1 billion) are undocumented workers; in raw
figures it may be as many as 800,000 individuals (Ritter, 1999). Overall,
Mexican officials estimate that there are 3 million undocumented Mexicans in
America at present (AFP, 9/27/00). Growers, of course, readily hire illegals,
noting the need to use cheap labor to compete in the marketplace. The booming
American economy has also spawned tens of thousands of low-paying service jobs
that are readily and happily filled by migrants, anxious to seek a better life
and/or to support struggling families back home. As the phenomenal economic run
in America continues(and there appears no end in sight), the economic migration
from south to north will likewise continue.
Authorities have attributed the increase in violence not simply to the increased
numbers, but in large part to the drug and immigrant smugglers who are
frustrated by the crackdown that has occurred along the border over the past
five years. "These are just isolated cases of smugglers reacting to
increased patrols," said Carlos Luna Herrera, regional coordinator of Grupo
Beta (AP, 7/28/99). The Calexico area was once a relatively easy target for
smugglers with only 81 agents assigned to patrol the area in 1996, and only a
small handful of those 81 agents worked any given night shift. Today, 194 agents
are assigned to this area with a night patrol force of 40 (compared to the
previous 7 or 8) who are aided by motion detectors and night vision scopes
(Associated Press, 7/28/99). In June of 1999, 9,908 migrants were arrested, more
than twice the number of arrests made in June of 1996. The all time high,
however, occurred in March of this year with the arrest of 19,908 migrants.
Another market of interest to the cartels involves stolen vehicles. Not part of
the traditional cartel litany of activities (Resendiz, 1998), officials have
recently found ties between gangs of car thieves in El Paso, Texas and the
Juarez Cartel. The Juarez Cartel is now paying El Paso gangs in drugs and
weapons for stolen vehicles. Al Lowe, head of the El Paso County Auto Theft Task
Force has indicated, "One of the biggest problems in this region is the
proliferation of these auto theft rings associated with narco-traffickers"
(Reuters, 1/6/98). In 1997, some 3,500 vehicles were stolen in El Paso and
smuggled into Mexico, many ending up in the hands of corporate executives and
government officials.
All told, it is now estimated that there are more than 5 million illegal
vehicles in Mexico, the bulk of which were stolen in the United States. These
stolen vehicles, generally referred to as "hot chocolate," are usually
marketed to relatively low-income households and are sold for between $500 (for
an older car) to $2,000 (for a much sought after mini-van)(AFP, 10/22/00).
"These (auto-theft) bands operate on both sides of the border without
problem," noted Phil Jordon, former DEA official and former head of the El
Paso Intelligence Center (Reuters, 1/6/98). At present, Mexican residents in the
border zone are legally permitted to own American manufactured vehicles that are
no less than five years old. Over the course of the next nine years, the NAFTA
free trade agreement gradually amends those laws, and in 2009 completely opens
the border to American made vehicles. While auto theft will surely continue to
be a problem thereafter, the pressure to steal will likely be somewhat
diminished. But until 2009, the stolen car market will remain a very lucrative
venue for the cartels.
Though hardly a new market per se, money laundering continues to grow as a major
activity of the cartels and their conspirators. In May of 1998, numerous Mexican
bankers were arrested by U.S. officials during Operation Casablanca, a
law enforcement effort involving over 200 undercover U.S. Customs agents (Farah,
1998). The "new" dimension to the money laundering trade will be the
enhanced capabilities afforded the cartels due to their increased access to the
internet, more powerful computers, and more complicated software.
STOPPING THEM
The Clinton administration formally classified the Mexican cartels as a major
target for federal law enforcement, (even though they have diverted resources to
Colombia of late), and focused significant efforts on "stopping them."
Stopping them, however, has proved to be an extremely difficult task. At best,
we are fighting a holding action. If the eradication of the cartels is the goal,
our interdiction efforts can be classified as an utter failure. Though not
politically popular, the data clearly indicates that law enforcement/military
interdiction alone cannot solve this problem. As of this writing, the cartels
are moving with great success, perhaps too much success, for the street level
law enforcement community reports that drug supplies are up, purity is up, and
prices are down. All told, the drug trade remains a mega-billion dollar
industry; $400 billion a year worldwide, with perhaps as much as $40 billion of
that finding its way to Mexico each year, as has been noted above.
Presidents Clinton and Fox, as well as former president Zedillo have at least
publicly proclaimed their mutual support and cooperation in the cartel wars,
noting the pressing need for cooperative law enforcement ventures on both sides
of the border (Reuters, 5/7/97). President Fox has of late pressed matters in
the press, openly calling on the United States to take on a greater
responsibility for the drug problems (Associated Press, 11/27/00). But he has
not limited his focus to the northern border alone. President Fox has expanded
his vision, calling for a coordinated Latin American war against drugs
trafficking (Associated Press, 10/9/00). There is some precedent for this - the
European community, for example, has seen some success in its multi-national
cooperative law enforcement efforts as they have taken on the Italian
mafia(Edelbacher, 1998). While there would be many obstacles, there is no
compelling reason a similar spirit of cooperation could not be developed in time
between agents and agencies throughout the Americas. As previously noted,
however, one of the major tools currently used in the drug war, the
certification process, seems only to aggravate the rift between the two
countries. The Mexican government continues to claim that certification is a
unilateral and unfairly judgmental process of evaluation, and President Fox has
called for its end. He is particularly critical of the United States for harshly
evaluating other nations for drug trafficking, when it is the United States who
consumes so much of the drugs, and finances these powerful drug-trafficking
organizations. America does in fact support roughly a $50 billion a year drug
market (Larmer, 1998). President Clinton acknowledged this fact recently,
stating, "Let's be frank here ... we have five percent of the world's
population, and we consume about half the drugs" (Reuters, 1997)/(16).
Despite the public proclamations of mutual support and cooperation, the United
States seems generally prepared to continue its model of unilateral
interdiction. During the next five years, there are plans to fence the entire
2,000 Mexican/American border. Less than 200 miles are currently fenced, and
that fencing is literally full of holes. The Drug Enforcement Administration has
hired 1,500 more persons to guard the border, and a number of large X-ray
machines that can examine entire trucks will soon be installed (Larmer, 1997).
The Immigration and Naturalization Service recently announced the hiring of an
additional 1,000 agents who will be assigned to patrol the border, primarily in
Texas. This will bring the number of INS agents along the Mexican border up to
7,000, up from 3,500 in 1993 (Wright, 3/10/98).
There is, however, some concrete evidence of growing cooperative efforts between
local law enforcement entities on both sides of the border. For example,
cooperative ventures are now underway between the Juarez Police Department and
the El Paso Police Department to respond to the stolen vehicle trade between
these two cities. "When I came here, I realized the key to success in this
job would be working with Juarez," said El Paso Police Chief Leach (Larmer,
1997). Auto theft fell about 20 percent in 1997 due to these efforts. As El Paso
border liaison police officer Jesus Torrones indicated, "the criminals have
always relied on the border to stop us, but that's not the case anymore" (Christian
Science Monitor, 2/3/98). This example of international law enforcement
cooperation sets a standard that should be adopted across the entire
southwestern border. As implied, such mutual support and collaboration is the
exception and not the norm at present.
The lack of cooperative efforts between the American and Mexican law enforcement
communities has long been exploited by the syndicates, and not just to run
stolen cars, but to run drugs, people, arms and money (Moore and Anderson,
9/8/96). Finally, in early 1998, Mexican and American officials began working
out the first ever bi-national drug control strategy (Reuters, 2/6/98). It will
surely be an organic document, subject to change and amendment over time.
The initial Alliance Against Drugs strategy outlined 16 goals, one of which is
the establishment of three cooperative Border Task Forces in unspecified
locations. Office of National Drug Control Policy Director, Barry McCaffrey has
indicated that "both sides are going to use off-set locations. We do not
want criminal organizations to understand precisely how we are organizing or
what our manpower will be." Under this agreement, the United States
government is also sharing sensitive intelligence with Mexico. This alliance,
coupled with new constitutional reforms and legislative actions pushed through
the Mexican senate by former President Zedillo, will put at least some heat on
the Mexican cartels (AFP, 12/4/97)/(17).
The formation of a common counter-drug strategy between Mexico and the United
States was a necessary and long awaited event. Unfortunately, there are still a
number of details that remain to be worked out; what will American agents be
allowed to do when in Mexico; how will extradition matters be handled; will
American agents be permitted to carry their U.S.-issued firearms when on duty in
Mexico? The firearm issue has been of particular concern. American law
enforcement agents have been strictly forbidden from carrying/using firearms in
Mexico. This matter is being re-assessed in light of adamant demands on the part
of American agents to be able carry their weapons into Mexico (Reuters,
10/22/97).
The United States has also steadily increased its interdiction efforts,
particularly in the area of personnel deployment. Since 1990, the United States
has increased the number of DEA agents on the border by 37 percent. Since 1990,
the number of United States attorneys in the region has gone up 80 percent; the
budget for the United States Customs Service has increased by 72 percent since
1993 (McCaffrey, 1997). In the last year of his presidency, Clinton requested an
additional $500 million for drug interdiction efforts, including the funding of
1,000 additional DEA agents to specifically be placed along the Mexican border
(UPI, 2/6/98). While such interdiction expenditures will surely continue into
the future, the Cartels have proven to remarkably adaptive and creative; the
latest innovation being the use of children as young as nine year old to smuggle
drugs past the unsuspecting American agents (Schrader, 2000).
Money laundering investigative efforts will also continue, especially in light
of the highly successful late 1990s effort, Operation Casablanca. Setting up an
undercover laundering operation in Los Angeles in 1995, U.S. agents handled more
than $100 million and arrested 168 people, including representatives from three
Mexican banks. There was a downside to the effort however. At least two American
agents, while assigned to Operation Casablanca, undertook investigative actions
while on Mexican soil without the Mexican government's approval. This outraged
the Mexican leadership and resulted in a 1998 agreement that limits the ability
of U.S. agents to work in Mexico. Specifically, no undercover operations or
intelligence gathering activities can be engaged in by American officials on
Mexican soil unless they are first cleared by the Mexican government. Given the
level of corruption within the Mexican leadership and the certain leaks that
would be forthcoming, this agreement effectively closed down any such
undercover/intelligence operations by American officials for the time being.
While covert operations most certainly continue, the U.S. does run the risk of
international embarrassment when and if they become publically uncovered.
In July of 1999, the U.S. Senate quietly passed a bill that will require the
government to publish a list of major international drug traffickers as well as
their front companies and business associates each year. Those entities
identified would be prohibited from doing business in the United States. Yet to
pass the House, this bill is clearly modeled after the drug certification law
(Chapter 8 of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961), and is designed to take on
companies that launder money for organized crime interests. The Clinton
Administration was initially in opposition to the bill, but now seem to be
working with Congressional leaders in an attempt to pass some type of anti-money
laundering measure of this nature (AFP, 9/27/99).
On the negative side of the anti-drug law enforcement efforts, the transfer of
ownership of the Panama Canal emerges as a practical obstacle to American drug
interdiction activities. American policy makers have used airborne surveillance
as a primary component in its drug war efforts. As the Panama Canal changes
ownership in the coming months, American military presence and the accompanying
airborne surveillance efforts in Central America will become diminished. With
the recent closing of Howard Air Force Base, for example, the U.S. lost 15,000
military flights a year, many of which were drug interdiction missions
(Associated Press, 7/30/99). It is unclear at this point how the military will
deal with this new challenge.
Perhaps the most interesting recent development in the drug wars is that for the
first time, officials on both sides of the border have recognized in an official
ground-breaking agreement that the drug matter will be "best tackled not
just by arresting top traffickers but also by cutting demand" (Reuters,
3/26/98). The United States had never formally accepted the fact that American
consumption of drugs was the main problem until March of 1998. In what may
become a decided shift in public policy efforts, Barry McCaffrey noted,
"you cannot arrest yourself out of a drug problem." He further
indicated that prevention will become America's number one priority and that
expenditures on prevention programs would increase by 21 percent in l999
(Reuters, 3/19/98). This came as a welcome breath of fresh air to the Mexican
government. Only time will tell if this is indeed a shift in American public
policy, and perhaps more importantly, if this shift has the desired impact upon
the drug trade in particular and the cartels in general.
CONCLUSIONS: THE FUTURE
The Mexican cartels have historically been very adaptable, professional and
efficient operations. They have survived changing markets and fluctuating
political climates. They have benefitted from relatively solid internal
leadership, an ability to cooperate, a socio-economic political environment that
needs cartel money, endemic poverty among the populous, institutionalized
corruption among government, military, and police officials at virtually every
level, a single party political system, a differentiation in economies that
drives hundreds of thousands of its citizens to illegally cross the border of
its northern neighbor, and a huge demand for drugs from that same wildly wealthy
northern neighbor. It would be remarkable if organized crime were NOT a dominant
feature in such a socio-politico-economic landscape. Indeed, the cartels and the
money they generate are enmeshed within the very fabric of life in Mexico
fabric.
The matter is further aggravated due to the fact that the cartels will likely
receive only token law enforcement attention from any seated Mexican government
in the foreseeable future. Unlike our battle with the Colombian cartels earlier
this decade, we can expect little real help from the Mexican government, where
corruption is so institutionalized, where distrust is so pervasive, and where
the economy is so dependent upon drug profits (equivalent to Mexican oil
revenues) and "wet-back" dollars.
The continued involvement of the Mexican military in the drug trade is
particularly troublesome. Given the obvious stature of the military within the
political culture of Mexico (or of any nation for that matter) and the deeply
entrenched/tap root nature of its involvement in the drug trade, one could
easily argue that they are perhaps the most dangerous, the most insipidus, and
surely destined to be the most enduring of all the Mexican drug cartels.
Cleansing the military of its drug trafficking culture will surely be a
profoundly difficult undertaking. Too much money is being made by too many very
powerful people who have access to very powerful weapons and men who will use
them on command. Even if legitimate efforts were to begin, it would take
generations to completely eradicate Mexican military involvement in the drug
trade.
The Mexican cartels pose a present and continuing threat to American interests,
but not to Mexican interests in a general sense (with perhaps the exception of
the Mexican military's very aggressive border region shake-down activities).
There is very little grass-roots opposition to the cartels among the Mexican
people. The cartels bring billions of American dollars into Mexico. Those
dollars are integral to the Mexican economy - clinics are built, teachers are
hired, roads are constructed, churches are erected. There is no clamor in Mexico
to stop the cartels. They only kill each other and an occasional
"deserving/corrupt" politician. Drug enforcement is not a central
concern of the Mexican people, and as long as the cartels resist the temptation
to market drugs to their own people, there will be no populous movement to rid
the country of the cartels due to the simple fact that they are such a valuable
economic asset to the nation.
In contrast, there are a significant number of investigative newspaper reporters
in Mexico who seem willing to take on the cartels. Many have paid with their
lives, however. One of the more notable being Yolanda Figueroa who wrote a book
on the Gulf Cartel. She and her family were killed in 1996, and the publisher
has left the books in the warehouse.
Though tantalizing and the topic of much discussion, the body politic remains
relatively unmoved by these pieces of investigative reporting and view the
cartel benefits worth the costs. What the Mexican people do not like and are
becoming increasingly intolerant to is the militarization of the U.S.-Mexican
border. In addition to the aggressive culture it brings to the region and the
accompanying oppression of the Mexican people who are de-facto powerless in
Mexican legal culture, the militarization slows the flow of legal and illegal
commodities across the border. The Mexican business community, utilizing the
NAFTA agreement, is seeking to level the playing field with its American
colleagues. The prospect of regular border delays present significant problems,
and thus has significant political implications. From the standpoint of the
business community, the need to move commodities in an expedient fashion is
paramount, especially perishable goods which make up a significant portion of
the Mexican-American trade. With the prospect of delay, an elaborate system of
bribery will be developed to facilitate the movement of legal commodities over
the border swiftly, and this cost will increase the cost of doing business in
America. Obviously piggybacking off of a newly developed border bribery system,
the cartels will be able to sidestep the border interdiction points and move
their commodities more readily into the U.S. markets. The whole notion makes
little sense to the Mexican people who currently place this issue in the center
of their political radar. Feeding off of this virtual uproar emanating from the
Mexican populous, President Fox has issued several calls for the opening of the
border, though to date the notion has not played well in the U.S., even among
his American political allies.
Cooperative law enforcement efforts surface as another option to consider. Five
years ago, at a United Nations conference in Naples, participants were warned
that if coordinated law enforcement actions were not swiftly undertaken at the
international level, the world community would become a slave to organized
crime, for the syndicates would be able to control economic conditions worldwide
(United Nations, 1995). In response, Mexico as well as representatives from 26
other North and South American countries signed the Manaus Declaration in
October of 2000, pledging their mutual cooperation in an attempt to more
effectively combat "drug trafficking and transnational criminal
activities" (AFP, 10/19/00). Only time will tell if this was mere political
posturing or an agreement of real substance.
There is no denying the need for such multi-national cooperative law enforcement
efforts, but such undertakings alone will not be effective. External attempts to
control the cartels will be ineffective unless they are supported by the
populous, the body politic. The primary component needed to take on the cartels
is the collective political will of the people, and no law enforcement effort
will be of much lasting value until a pro-active public sentiment is in place.
Institutions of public order are not effective unless they reinforce the
dominant social view; they are viable only if they function as a supplement to
social and cultural forces moving in the same direction. The cartels flourish in
Mexico surely in part because the American people purchase the products
provided, and because of the vast economic differences between these two
neighbors. But the cartels also flourish in Mexico because the Mexican people
lack the collective moral will to challenge their power. Unless law enforcement
efforts are supported by the moral and ethical conscience of the citizenry, such
efforts will be ineffective in producing the desired results. The key component
in any battle against organized crime is the collective political will of the
people. That must be in place first and foremost, before any interdiction
efforts can begin to have a significant long-term impact.
There is a third component that also must be in place. In an address that,
granted, on the one hand could be seen as nothing more than political rhetoric
designed to attract the nation's Hispanic vote, but on the other hand is a
refreshing voice in crime control dominated America, Texas Governor George W.
Bush called upon officials on both sides of the border to build "monuments
of faith." That particular day, he and then Mexican President Ernesto
Zedillo dedicated a bridge between Mexico and American, the 25th bridge that
spans the border between these two countries. "We need bridges," Bush
said, "not walls" (AFP, 9/3/99).
This gentler approach suggests the need to reduce the emphasis on profits, to
retreat from the market culture ideology, to redistribute income, to provide
more economic opportunities for the poor, and to adjust macro social values, ie.
cut demand for illegal goods and services. That statement also smacks of
rhetoric, of the liberal tradition. The proposed goals are certainly laudable,
and if achieved, would clearly have a dampening impact on the proliferation of
transnational organized crime activities in this world, but are perhaps little
more than the ravings of utopian visionaries.
In the short run, the harsh reality is that transnational organized crime in
general and the Mexican cartels in particular, are here to stay, and there is
likely little that can be done to counter their collective impact for now. As
Alexander and Caiden (1985) have pointed out, long term responses are needed for
the organized crime problem. Consider the following strategies:
1. Political corruption must be eliminated. Without political corruption, organized crime loses its protection.
2. Develop a multi-party political system in countries that lack such an arrangement. A political party with no opposition is accountable to no one.
3. A heightened sense of professionalism must be developed in the law enforcement community in the international community.
4. There is a need for law enforcement coordination and cooperation throughout the international community.
5. Centralized law enforcement data banks need to be developed and maintained on an international level.
6. International extradition treaties need to be developed among countries that lack such agreements.
7. Existing international extradition treaties need to be re-written to reflect the dynamics of the contemporary political realities.
8. The World Court needs to enhance its political capital, substance, and strength.
9. Illegal markets need to be made unprofitable, principally on the demand side, and particularly in the United States.
10. The public needs to be educated as to the true nature and impact of organized crime operations, and mobilized to action.
11. More research needs to be undertaken into the structures, techniques, and
impacts of organized crime on society. To be victorious, we need to learn all we
can
about the enemy.
THE UNANSWERED QUESTIONS
Many questions remain unanswered regarding the future of the Mexican cartels,
and their role in the Meso-American organized crime scene. What part will the
Mexican cartels play in the new Fox government? At this point, it is somewhat
unclear. They seem to be almost lying low. No claims of illegal contributions
made during the 2000 presidential campaign have been forthcoming as of yet. Is
that due to the fact that all of the candidates were on the take or was this a
relatively clean election? Have the cartels become more subtle and astute in
their campaign fund laundering procedures? How will the cartels respond to the
two party/multiple party system, if indeed this arrangement continues to
establish itself on the Mexican political terrain. Are the Mexican people, with
a paternalistic-aristocratic political tradition that pre-dates the Spanish,
truly ready to handle the increased responsibility of a viable two
party/multi-party political system? Are Mexican political, corporate and civic
institutions ready for the dynamics that such a move brings? Will the Mexican
mass media in particular be able to make the transition from governmental
mouthpiece to viable independence?
Will President Fox be successful in his call for the development of a
coordinated regional/multinational war-effort against drug trafficking? Will
such an effort be politically popular in Latin America? Will this multinational
initiative emerge as a truly effective and viable entity? How will the cartels
in Mexico and the rest of Latin American respond to this initiative? How will
the cartels respond to what appears to be a continuing decline in cocaine use in
America? Will they turn more attention to the meth markets? Will they turn more
attention to local drug sales and begin to tap into its own people, at the risk
of attracting the ire of the local populous for the first time and ultimately
the Mexican government itself? It is one thing to sell to the Yankees and
extract their dollars, but it is another thing entirely to tap into your own
people.
How will the cartels respond to the extremely aggressive Chinese Triad drug
marketing strategies? Will the Mexican cartels try their hand in the burgeoning
European economies or limit their focus to the western hemisphere? Will Puerto
Rican cartels, enriched with the hundreds of millions they have accumulated from
their mid-1990s trans-shipment operations, rise up and challenge Mexico for the
control of the American markets? Will the Colombian narco-terrorist groups
realize success in their current struggles against the seated government? If so,
will they settle for a share of the drug trade or will they attempt to develop a
monopoly in the North and South American drug trafficking markets? Recent
reports out of Colombia suggest a plan to re-establish control of the supply
lines and to subsequently divide the supply of drugs between Mexico and Puerto
Rico, thus forcing the Puerto Rican and Mexican cartels to compete with each
other in a classic divide and conquer scheme, leaving the Colombians in a
position of dominance. How will the Mexican cartels respond to such a scheme?
Will the Mexican cartels be able to bring the vitality and adaptive capabilities
into the 21st century that have allowed them to be so successful in the 20th?
The answers to these and other questions that will yet emerge in our ever
changing environment must await the passage of time and in the end will perhaps
be answered accurately only in historical retrospect.
POST SCRIPT
There has been, I would argue, five stages of sovereignty in the western world
over the past millennium. The church was the near omnipotent sovereign at the
dawn of the present millennium, and ruled and reigned with virtually
unchallenged power for several hundred years. The kings, armed with their
self-ascribed divine right, functioned as the sovereign in the next evolutionary
period. In turn, parliaments, then the people, and today, I would suggest,
multi-national corporations have taken their turn as the sovereigns of primary
power. The next phase will see transnational organized crime entities emerge as
the de-facto sovereign of significance in the world. Organized transnational
crime possess a political as well as a socio-economic threat to Mexico, and to
the entire world. It is in the process of integrating itself into the
socio-economic political fabric of both developing and developed nations, is
becoming a major force in international finance, and is destined to dominate
until the collective political will of "we, the people" is galvanized
in opposition.
Endnotes
1. In 1963, the much loved Mexican President Lopez Mateos instituted measures
that permitted new voices to enter the Chamber of Deputies. In 1964 PAN received
20 congressional seats and the Partido Popular Socialista picked up 10 seats. It
could be argued however, that these were basically token seats, for the PRI
maintained its iron hold on the nation's political scene. Only recently has
there been even a crack in PRI dominance. The current mayor of Mexico City, for
example, is from an opposition party. Several (4) Senate seats were lost in
1988, and a state gubernatorial race was lost for the first time in 1989. Minor
changes in substance, but major in that they were the first real chip in the PRI
shield and its party-state model.
2. Some would classify the Sinaloa Cartel as a major player, but its current
power seems to be greatly diminished. This group was/is a spin-off organization
of the larger Sonora Cartel. The Sinaloa Cartel broke off and began cooperating
with the Cali cartel to transship huge quantities of cocaine during the 1980s
and early 1990s. They were responsible for constructing the long tunnel under
the Mexican/American border that was used for its then extensive drug trade.
That operation was shut down in May of 1993 however. In July of 1993, nearly 6
tons of Cali/Sinaloa cocaine was seized in El Salvador (Reuters, 6/12/93), and
Sinaloa co-leader "El Guero" (Hector Luis Palma Salazar) was
eventually arrested. The other leader of this cartel, "El Chapo"
(Joaquin Guzman Lora) was arrested and in 1993 was given a 15 year prison
sentence. Remnants of this group are still functioning, but it is not anywhere
near as powerful today as it was seven years ago.
3. In retrospect, Abrego was probably the victim of his own success. He became
very visible, and because of that, the Cali cartel suppliers began to be
somewhat reluctant to do business with him. His relatively visible private army
became somewhat of an embarrassment to the Mexican government. In the end, his
government friends who were on the payroll eventually left office and he did not
court others quickly enough. This, combined with the fact that Mexico was under
intense pressure to show progress in its war on drug efforts lest it be
de-certified, sealed Abrego's fate (see generally Sam Dillon, "Bribes and
publicity mark fall of Mexican drug lord," New York Times, 5/12/96,
pp. 1, 6).
4. $1.3 billion in $20 bills weights roughly 14,300 pounds; obviously a massive
logistics efforts would be required to count, store, move and eventually deposit
this amount of money.
5. As of 2/98, an estimated $30 billion a year was being laundered in Mexico
(Reuters, 2/16/98).
6. Fuentes was very tight with Jorge Hank, Jr. Jorge Hank, Sr. is one of the
most powerful men in the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), the Mexican
national party. He also had Gutierrez Rebollo, the Mexican Drug Czar, on his
payroll. In a minor blow to Fuentes in the spring of 1997, this relationship was
uncovered, and Rebollo was forced to resign (Brant, 1997), and was eventually
sentenced to 13 years and nine months in prison (Reuters, 3/3/97). A March 1997 New
York Times article detailed the Fuentes connection with governors of at
least two Mexican states - Morelos and Sonora (Reuters, 2/16/97).
7. The matter is even more complicated due to the fact that green American
dollars are no longer considered negotiable currency in Colombia. Their very
possession in any significant amount now brings law enforcement attention.
Possession of American currency has national security implications in Colombia -
if you have lots of American cash it is surely drug money, and you may be
working with our enemies - FARC and/or the ELN. As a result, a relatively brisk
trade in narco-dollars has arisen in the U.S. Large amounts of cash are given to
American brokers who smurf the money into various American bank accounts.
Subsequently postal money orders and cashiers checks are written on those
accounts and mailed to the Colombians, who then may use these financial
instruments to purchase commodities in Colombia. The U.S. estimates that roughly
$5 billion a year is being "mailed" to Colombia. Numerous
multi-national firms are being accused of willful blindness in
accepting these forms of payments. People will literally go into a Bogota car
dealership, for example, with a stack of 500 money orders, all made out in
American dollars and drawing on an American bank. Anxious to make the sale and
knowing that the money orders are legitimate (ie., the dealership will get its
money), the financial paper is accepted and the car is sold. By accepting those
money orders as payment, the car dealership becomes involved in the drug money
laundering process. The U.S. Attorney General has formally meet with the
leadership of many Fortune 500 companies (Kodak, Hewlitt Packard, Sony, Ford,
Philip Morris to name a few) in an attempt to put an end to the practice of willful
blindness, in Colombia and elsewhere
8. As would be expected, Colombia's political scene is quite different from that
of Mexico. Mexico has a strong drug cartel presence and a relatively weak
terrorist presence. The Zapatista's (or EZLN - Zapatista National Liberation
Army), based in the southern state of Chiapas, are the only terrorist group of
consequence at present. They are a left wing organization that seeks more rights
for Mexico's 10 million Indian population. Emerging on the scene in early 1994,
some 150 people were killed in confrontations between the EZLN and government
troops. Things have been relatively quiet since the fall of 1996, though there
is still a fair amount of tension and animosity in the area (AFP, 9/14/99).
Colombia on the other hand, currently has a relatively weak cartel presence, but
an overwhelmingly powerful terrorist presence. As noted in the body of this
paper, the most dominant terrorist groups seem to be the Revolutionary Armed
Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the National Liberation Army (ELN) who have a
combined force of some 20,000 members. Very quietly from the American public's
perspective, these narco-terrorists have amassed a massive military arsenal,
more extensive than the Colombian army. They currently represent a legitimate
threat to the sovereignty of the Colombian government. In the summer of 1999, a
U.S. spy plane crashed in Colombia, bringing some measure of publicity to this
unfolding drama (see generally, Hammer and Isikoff, 1999). The recent emergence
of several right wing vigilante organizations, upset with the government's
inability to maintain order, has made the situation more difficult, especially
in light of the fact that these right wing entities have moved into the drug
trade to finance their operations and ironically seem to be profiting more from
the drug trade than the left-wing groups. The right wing vigilante groups have
the potential to be an even greater risk to the sovereign government of Colombia
than do the left-wing organizations.
9. As University of Guanajuato political scientist Luis Miguel Rionda noted,
"The only thing (Fox) promised is change. We don't have a clear idea of
what that means." (Zarembo, 2000, p. 36).
10. The article continued that the Mexican cartels have bought out the
government, the police and the military. The article had an interesting
interview with an average Mexican who said as follows: "We don't have any
faith in the government's ability to fight drug trafficking, but that doesn't
mean we like the United State's coming in and dictating. You are the ones who
consume all the drugs!"
11. Chapter 8 of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, with its many amendments,
requires the President to annually inform Congress as to whether or not major
drug producing and drug transit countries are cooperating with the United States
in the drug war, or have taken adequate steps on their own to meet the goals of
the 1988 United Nations Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and
Psychotropic Substances. President Reagan undertook the first Certification
efforts in 1986. In l999, 23 countries were certified (Aruba, Bahamas, Bolivia,
Brazil, Cambodia, China, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Haiti, Hong
Kong, India, Jamaica, Laos, Malaysia, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Taiwan,
Thailand, Venezuela, and Vietnam), two were granted national interest waivers
(Belize and Pakistan), and five were not certified (Afghanistan, Burma,
Colombia, Iran and Nigeria). In 2000, the activities of 32 countries will be
examined.
The process involves several steps, as follows:
A. In the fall of each year, the State Department provides the President with
a brief synopsis of drug producing and transit countries' drug fighting efforts.
B. The President makes a preliminary certification decision and forwards this
decision on to the Chairs of the House International Relations Committee, the
Senate
Foreign Relations Committee and several Congressional appropriation
subcommittees. This is generally done before November 1.
C. The State Department continues to obtain information and submits a more
complete report to the President, generally by sometime in February. The
President
makes a final decision and passes the matter on to Congress before March 1.
The President may recommend:
a. full certification
b. deny certification
c. grant a vital national interest certification
D. The President's decision stands, unless Congress overrides that decision within 30 days. Congress has yet to override any Presidential certification decision.
For more information on the drug certification process, see http://www.state/gov/www/global/narcotics_law/certify.html
12. An additional example of the game that is played - a few hours after the
United States announced that Mexico had been re-certified in 1997, Mexico
announced that Humberto Abrego, a major player in the Gulf Cartel who was in
custody in Mexico, walked out of the police headquarters and escaped somehow.
His "escape" had actually taken place the day before, but was not
announced until several hours after re-certification was confirmed. Malherve was
released from jail on a technicality a few weeks after the United States
certification was finalized (Brant, 1997).
13. There is a threat of explosion, the chemicals are quite corrosive by nature,
improper exposure could prove fatal, and there is a distinctive tell-tale odor
that could be detected by legal authorities.
14. The "coyote" is generally the head of the operation. They will
hire a "chicken seller" (vendepollo) who will work the streets in
search of customers, a "fence jumper" (brincador) who guides the
illegals across the border, and a driver in the United States who will take them
to a safe house where they wait until the final payment is made. Coyote's
generally hire fence jumpers who are under the age of 18, and thus free from
prosecution under federal people-smuggling law.
15. Mexican officials recently arrested 51 undocumented Chinese who were hidden
in secret compartments of trucks headed for the United States (AFP, 2/27/98).
16. Interestingly, it is estimated that some 90 percent of the weapons toted by
cartel members come from the United States. When asked by Mexican officials to
put a stop to this illegal arms trade, American officials have indicated that
the demand for the weapons is on the Mexican end, so they, the Mexicans, should
stop it - an interesting bit of international diplomatic hypocrisy that the
United States can engage in, because at present it has the
biggest stick.
17. The United States and Mexico have entered into a number of so-called side
agreements with respect to NAFTA. A NAFTA side agreement relative to criminal
justice matters has not been developed, and clearly needs to hammered out in the
near future.
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Reuters, "Late Mexican drug-lord's bank accounts frozen," 9/13/97, internet.
Reuters, "Senators say drug barons must be arrested," 10/22/97, internet.
Reuters, "Border task forces to be set up with Mexico," 12/3/97, internet.
Reuters, "Texas auto thieves team up with Mexico drug cartel," 1/6/98, internet.
Reuters, "Eight killed in Mexico drug war," 1/12/98, internet.
Reuters, "Mexico indians reject out-of-date aid in Chiapas," 1/20/98, internet.
Reuters, "Fifth Mexican general jailed on drug charges," 1/23/98, internet.
Reuters, "Mexican says U.S. drug certification unacceptable," 2/4/98, internet.
Reuters, "U.S., Mexico unveil join plan to fight drug trade," 2/6/98, internet.
Reuters, "Gang members indicted in Mexico cardinal's slaying," 2/11/98, internet.
Reuters, "Mexico drug war diverts cocaine back to Florida," 2/13/98, internet.
Reuters, "U.S. approves Mexican anti-drug efforts," 2/26/98, internet.
Reuters, "U.S.-Mexico drug conspiracy is broken up," 2/27/98, internet.
Reuters, "U.S. deploying 1,000 guards to Mexican border," 3/10/98, internet.
Reuters, "Swiss link Raul Salinas, drug traffickers," 3/13/98, internet.
Reuters, "U.S.-Mexican drug meeting stresses cutting demand," 3/19/98, internet.
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Index
Abrego, Garcia
AeroMexico Accounts
Aguilar, Rafael
Airborne Surveillance
Alliance Against Drugs
American Airlines
American Financial Aid
American Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS)
Amezcua Luis
Annual Certification
Anti-Cartel
Anti-Drug Initiative
Anti-Drug Operations
Argentina
Assassination
Atrocities
Autocratic Party-State System
Auto Theft
Ballesteros, Matta
Banco Union
Bank Bailout Scam
Banking Regulatory Agencies
Bank Loans
Bega, Renato
Benitez, Jose Fredrico
Bi-national Anti-Drug Battle
Black Tuesday
Bolivia
Bolivian Authorities
Border Task Forces
Border Zone
Bridges
Brunt, Horacio
Bush, George W.
Cabinet Appointments
Calexico Area
Calles, Plutarco
Canada
Cardenas, Cuautehmoc
Cardenas, Luzaro
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Carrera, Adrian
Central Asia
Central Bank of Canada
Central Executive Committee
Cervantes, Enrique
Chamber of Deputies
Chiapas
Chihuahua
Children
China
"China White"
Chinese Triads
CIA
Clinics
Clinton/Clinton Administration
Coca-buck
Coca Crop
Cocaine/Cocaine Market
Colombia
Columbian Narco-Terrorist Groups
Colombian National Police
Colosio, Luis Donaldo
Constantine, Thomas
Contreras, Amezcua
Corta, Vincent
Coyotes
Coverdell, Paul
Covert Operations
Cuba
Currency Crisis
Czech Republic
Dallas/Ft. Worth Airport
DEA
Decade of Violence
De-certified
Dedazo
Deposit Insurance Fund
Development Gap
Diaz, Jose de la Cruz Porfirio
Drug Barons
Drug Certification Program
Drug Czar
Drug-laundering Law
Drug Syndicate Connections
Drug Taxing
Drug Trade
Drug Traffickers
Drug Wars
Durango
Economic Repercussion
Economy
Egypt
Elected Government Positions
Electoral Revolution
Electronic Sensor Technology
El Paso
El Paso County Auto Theft Task Force
El Paso Intelligence Center
El Paso Police Department
Ephedrine
Europe
European Bank Accounts
European Union
Extortion
"The Federation"
Feinstein, Dianne
Felix-Arellano Brothers
Feminization
Figueroa, Yolanda
Financial Crisis
Foreign Debt
Fox, Vincente
Fuentes, Amado Carrillo
Functions of President
Gacha, Rodriguez
Gallardo, Miguel Angel Felix
Gambling
Gangland Slayings
Gephardt, Dick
Germany
Gilman, Benjamin
Gonzalez, Carlos Hank
Gore, Albert
Governors
Grand Alliance
Grand Coalition
Grand Master Plan
Grapo Beta
Green, Rosario
Gross Domestic Product
Guadalajara
Guadalajara Prison
"Guapo Hank"
Guillen, Oziel Cardenas
Gulf Cartel
Gulf Cartel King-pin
Hank Family
Heroin
Herrera, Carlos Luna
Herrara Family
Hiett, James
Hispanic
"Hot Chocolate"
House of International Relations Committee
Howard Air Force Base
Human Rights Groups
Hutchinson, Kay Bailey
Illegal Contributions
Illegal Immigrant Population
Immigration
Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986
India
INS Agents
Institute for Fight Against Drug Trafficking
Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI)
Intelligence Operation
Inter-American Development Bank
Interdiction
International Monetary Fund
International Multilateral Development Banks
IPAB
Ireland
Israel
Italian Mafia
Jalisco
Jarto, Guana
Jerez
Jordon, Phil
Juarez Cartel
Juarez, Ciudad
Juarez Police Department
Judge Hernandez
Kidnaping
Labastida, Francisco
Latin American Union
"Lord of the Skies"
Los Angeles
Lowe, Al
Low-grade Cocaine
Lozano
McCaffrey, Barry
Madero, Francisco
Maldonado, Jorge Mariano
Malherve, Oscar
Manaus Declaration
Marajuana
Massieu, Jose Francisco Ruiz
Massieu, Mano
Mercusor
Meso-American Nation
Meth Labs
Meth Production/Methamphetamine
Methamphetamine "Kings"
Mexican Drug Czar
Mexican Federal Police
Mexican Foreign Ministry
Mexican Judicial System
Mexican Mafia Family
Mexican Military
"Mexican Mud"
Mexican Secretary of Defense
Mexican Stock Market
Mexican Supreme Court
Mexican Truth Commission
Mica, John
Migrant Workers
Money Laundering
Monuments of Faith
Moral Will
Motion Detectors
Motorcycle Gangs
Mules
Multilateral Evaluation System
Multi-party Political System
NAFTA
Naples
Narco-dollars
Narco-Terrorist Groups
Narcotics Investigations
National Action Party (PAN)
National Institute for Combating Drugs
National Liberation Army (ELN)
National Revolutionary Party
Night Patrol Force
Night Vision Scopes
Ocampo, Juan Jesus
Oil
Operation Casablanca
Operation Forerunner
Opium
Opposition Party Member
Panama Canal
Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD)
Pastrana, President
Peniche, Carlos Cabal
People Smuggling
Peru
Plan Colombia
Portillo, Jose Lopez
Post-Diaz Era
Post-prohibition Era
Preita, Agua
Prevoisin, Gerardo de
PRI Central Executive Committee
Puerto Rican Cartels
Puerto Rico
Quintana Roo
Quintero, Caro
Ramos, Raul
Raw Materials
Rebollo, Jesus Gutierrez
Rhon, Carlos Hank
Rhon, Jorge Hank
Rio Grande
Robledo, Eduardo
Rodriguez, William
Rodriguez-Orejula, Gilberto
Rodriguez-Orejula, Miguel
Rolex
Ruiz, Francisco Molina
Salazar, Hecto Luis Pulma
Salinas, Carlos
Salinas, Raul
San Antonio
Satellite Photography
Self-defense Force
Sepulveda, Armando
Seven-Point Political Platform
Sinaloa
Smugglers
Socio-Economic Culture
Socio-Economic Development
Socio-Political Evolution
Soldier
Sombrerte
Sonora Cartel
Spain
Stalin, Joseph
Stanley, Francisco "Paco"
Stolen Vehicles
Street Crimes
Swiss Bank Accounts
Switzerland
Tavia, Juan Pablo de
Texas
Tijuana/Tijuana Cartel
Torrones, Jesus
Torture
Trejo, Javiev Coello
Truth Commission
Underworld Figures
Underworld Markets
Undocumented Workers
U.S. Border Patrol
U.S. Custom Agents
U.S. Eximbank
U.S. Federal Reserve
U.S. General Accounting Office
U.S. Mexican Border
Utopian Visionaries
Villa, Pancho
Villanueva, Mario
Violence
Wet-back Dollars
Whistle-blowers
White House
World Bank
World Court
X-Ray Machines
Yankees
Zacatecas
Zapata, Emiliano
Zedillo, President