Homer City would be a relatively quiet community – if it wasn’t for the level of drug crime. According to a recent Indiana Gazette report, the court system within the county handled 1,600 cases last year. Of those cases, 80 percent were crimes that had some sort of connection to drugs.
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Should a celebrity have the right to be heard above others in a plea for leniency? What if that plea is surrounding the sentencing for a drug offender? If the offender is facing a mandatory sentence, should the rules bend?
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Drug violence has escalated in Honduras as Mexican drug kingpins continue to fight to the death over smuggling routes. According to a piece in the Washington Post, suspected drug hit men killed nine people in Tegucigalpa.
Mexican drug trafficking cartels have long fought bloody battles amongst themselves, each trying to assert dominance in the never-ending struggle for turf and coveted drug-trafficking routes. The bloodbath has been spilling into the streets of Mexican border cities and towns in increasing frequency since Mexican President Felipe Calderon took office in December 2006 and launched an offensive against drug traffickers, deploying some 10,000 Mexican soldiers. The death toll to date in Mexico as a result of the drug wars is nearly 19,000.
Violence Continues
With Spring Break, Mexican officials had hoped tourism would rebound, vital to the rebuilding of the Mexican economy. Those hopes were dashed with the recent killings in Acapulco – where thousands of U.S. students have converged in the annual springtime ritual of partying. Some 24 people were killed in and around Acapulco March 13. In Ciudad Juarez, the dead included two Americans, a U.S. consulate employee and her husband and a third person, the husband of another U.S. consulate employee.
A travel alert, issued by the U.S. State Department March 13, 2010, warns U.S. citizens of the serious dangers and risks involved in travel to Mexico. The U.S. Embassy advises citizens to delay unnecessary travel to parts of Michoacán, Durango, Coahuila and Chihuahua, and for U.S. residents in and around those areas to exercise extreme caution.
The alert advises that Mexican drug cartels are engaged in violent conflict – among themselves and with Mexican border security – for control of narcotics trafficking routes along the U.S.-Mexico border. Mexican military troops have been deployed throughout the country to combat the violence. The alert reports that large firefights have erupted across Mexico, but occur mostly in northern Mexico, including Ciudad Juarez, Tijuana, Chihuahua City, Nogales, Matamoros, Reynosa, and Monterrey. Travel restrictions in the states of Coahuila, Chihuahua and Durango have been implemented as a result of recent assaults, kidnappings and murders in those three states.
Travelers on the highways between Monterrey and other parts of Mexico to the U.S. have been targeted for robbery and violence and often have been caught in the gunfire between drug traffickers and Mexican law enforcement.
The situation is of particular concern in Ciudad Juarez, where more than 2,600 people were killed in 2009. The recent upsurge in violence has prompted the State Department to advise all non-essential travel be curtailed to the Guadalupe Bravo area east of Ciudad Juarez and the northwest corner of Chihuahua State including the city of Nuevo Casas Grandes and surrounding communities. These areas are often reached through the Columbus, New Mexico and Fort Hancock and Fabens, Texas points-of-entry – and U.S. citizens have been the victims of drug-related violence in these areas.
The travel alert cautions that the situation in northern Mexico remains fluid, and urges Americans to be alert to safety and security concerns when visiting the border region.
Mexican Drug Cartels
A decade ago there were four major drug cartels in Mexico. Today, according to Mexican officials, there are at least seven. The two most powerful are the Gulf and Sinaloa cartels. The Gulf cartel controls one-third of the narcotics shipments to the United States.
The Sinaloa cartel is based in the drug-rich Pacific state of the same name. Its leader is the billionaire Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, who has been on the lam and rarely seen since his escape from a maximum security prison in 2001.
Others include the Zetas, La Familia, Beltran Leyva and two others. The Zetas is a gang composed of Mexican Special Forces soldiers originally hired by the Gulf cartel as muscle in the 1990s. Today, the Zetas are a separate cartel.
A duopoly, known as The Company, was formed by the Gulf cartel and the Zetas. During the past few years, The Company controlled drug trafficking along hundreds of miles of terrain at the eastern end of the U.S.-Mexico border. The powerful duopoly moved tons of marijuana and cocaine through the border city regions, each managed by a different boss.
The Pacific states of Guerrero and neighboring Michoacán are under the control of the powerful La Familia cartel.
Many Cities Not Safe
A 200 mile stretch of border has become total chaos after the recent weakening of the rivals’ alliance. In Reynosa, a border city and others along the eastern end of the U.S.-Mexico border, bodies are piling up. Several journalists are missing or dead and the streets are deserted after dark.
The Mexican Army 8th Division has had a presence along the border cities since 2007. Recently, they have found evidence of drug gangs escalating violence along this stretch of the border.
From the Mexican border cities stretching from Matamoros near the Gulf to Nuevo Laredo, gunfire occurs daily. At least 49 people have been killed in less than six weeks. Drug rivals set up vehicle checkpoints – searching for their rivals.
The Pacific coast city of Tijuana and Ciudad Juarez across from El Paso, Texas, have long been wracked by gang warfare between rival cartels. But others were relatively calm under the duopoly of The Company.
In the midst of the recent explosion of drug-related violence, the Gulf, Sinaloa and La Familia cartels have apparently united against the Zetas. This rift among the cartels has intensified violence along the border as rivals fight for turf control and drug trafficking routes.
Violence against journalists has led them to censor themselves – for fear of reprisals from drug cartels. This leaves the people to sort out the facts from the maelstrom of rumors. Citizens have resorted to tweeting each other to warn of the latest gunfire and what streets to steer clear of. Even Reynosa officials have set up a feed on Twitter.
Other news reports tell of gang cartel hit men, based over the border from Texas, paying reporters $500 a month and showering them with prostitutes and liquor to quash all reports of turf war and killings. This news blackout has resulted in little media coverage of the carnage in the area over the last month, despite more than 100 deaths.
The U.S.-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) says cartel attacks have made Mexico one of the most dangerous countries for media. At least 24 journalists have been killed since 2006, according to CPJ.
What’s happened is that people in and around Reynosa are staying in their homes at night. And city officials lament the fact that Americans aren’t crossing the border to shop in Reynosa anymore.
In Mexico – Criticism over Supposed Favoritism of Sinaloa Cartel
Despite Mexican President Calderon’s declarations to end the bloody drug cartel-related violence, critics contend that the government’s efforts are directed toward all other cartels, leaving the Sinaloa cartel pretty much alone. Some critics intimated Calderon wanted Sinaloa to emerge the winner in the drug cartel battles because they would be easier to negotiate a truce with. But Calderon has repeatedly said he would never negotiate with drug traffickers.
In a story reported by the Los Angeles Times in February 2010, President Calderon finally responded to the allegations, which had been circulating for months. He said the accusations were totally unfounded and that the Mexican government is “attacking without discrimination all criminal groups in Mexico.” He then listed the names of some Sinaloa cartel members who have been captured or killed, including El Teo (Teodoro Garcia Simental, who reportedly melted his victims in vats of lye), captured in January, and Vicente Zambada (son of a top Sinaloa cartel leader), who was extradited to the U.S. in early March.
In the U.S. – Southwest High-Tech Border Security Fence Problems
The combined physical and electronic security fence was supposed to be the capstone in a 2,000-mile Southwest border fence designed to keep our borders safe. It was a great idea, but so far it isn’t working. That’s the assessment of many, including officials of Homeland Security, the department which authorized the ambitious project with Boeing in 2005. Technology has cost about $20 million thus far, and Homeland Security officials and contractor Boeing remain hopeful that a much-improved high-tech system will evolve.
Key questions are whether the system, originally expected to be completed in 2011, will ever be completed at all, and, if it is, will it work? Some officials say it may not be ready for another seven years, if ever. At present, the system languishes in the testing phase in two remote spots in Arizona on the U.S.-Mexico border.
The components of the high-tech system include sensor towers, communications relay system and unattended ground sensors. But there have been serious system failures and repeated delays. The state-of-the-art system has been bogged down with radar clutter, blurred imagery on computer screens, and satellite time lapses that allow drug smugglers and undocumented workers to slip past U.S. law enforcement officers.
The goal remains just that, a goal. Border security must be implemented, and it will necessitate the use of technology. At issue now is whether this high-tech security fence will be able to protect the entire border and, if not, what will?
U.S. Supports Mexican Government Efforts to Combat Drug Cartel Violence
With the situation so volatile, U.S. officials, including Texas Republican Senator John Cornyn, say the U.S. needs to continue to support Mexican President Felipe Calderon’s efforts to fight the drug violence. Already, the U.S. has spent $1 billion in Project Merida to provide intelligence, surveillance and equipment to Mexico. The support does not include troops. Mexico does need our help, but they don’t want our troops. And President Barack Obama has said that we do not want to militarize our borders.
With so much drug-related violence on the U.S.-Mexico border, many in this country worry about spillover effects and other problems. In Texas, for example, wealthy Mexican families have come to the U.S. to escape the violence. But Senator Cornyn doesn’t think there’s any threat of the drug traffickers – who are battling for supremacy in Mexico – moving the violence into the U.S. They know that the U.S. would respond with all its might to quell such an invasion of our land and threat to our citizens, according to Cornyn.
Still, asserts Cornyn, it is vital that the U.S. support President Calderon against the drug cartels. The trade in human trafficking, weapons and drugs must be quashed. This is not an easy task. The drug lords are a powerful and destabilizing force in Mexico and they have more than 100,000 foot soldiers. But Cornyn and other U.S. officials have repeatedly stated that Mexico is not a failed state. Most of the violence is directed at the drug traffickers and law enforcement officials engaged in battle with them.
Drugs, Weapons and Money – the Battle Continues
Fueled by the demand for drugs in the U.S., the illegal narcotics industry is booming. According to the Portal for North America (http://portalfornorthamerica.org/spotlight/2010/02/mexico-attempts-stem-flow-illicit-weapons-us-0), for every shipment of drugs into the U.S., a return shipment is made of weapons and cash. Mexican officials report that 90 percent of the firearms seized in drug raids – including assault weapons – originate in the United States. Once the weapons reach Mexico, they promote the further militarization of the drug cartels.
Marijuana, cocaine, black tar and brown heroin – all make their way along the well-established routes on the U.S.-Mexican border and into the U.S., protected by various drug trafficking organizations. With billions at stake, it’s much more than bragging rights. The violence and the battle continue with not so much as a slight hiatus. In some border cities, gunfire is heard non-stop. Ciudad Juarez has about one killing an hour and the situation is the same in many other border cities.
The U.S. Department of Justice, in the 2009 National Drug Threat Summary, warns that Mexican drug trafficking organizations (DTOs) represent the greatest organized crime threat to the United States and calls their influence over domestic drug trafficking “unrivaled.” Mexican and Columbian DTOs generate, remove and launder between $18 billion and $39 billion in wholesale drug proceeds annually.
One of the emerging trends is the influx of Mexican black tar heroin into lucrative markets in the northeast U.S., formerly the stronghold of Columbian white powder heroin. There, black tar heroin has gained market share and Mexican DTOs have been able to extend distribution farther into the markets because of stepped-up production in Mexico and reduced Columbian production. The Mexican DTOs seem determined to push even further into new markets, establishing more regional distribution centers.
And so, the battle continues. As long as there is a demand in the U.S. for the various drugs supplied by the Mexican DTOs, the drugs-weapons-money cycle will go on. Eradication of the poppy fields in Mexico may help stem the tide of the black tar heroin trade, but that would require serious cooperative effort among various entities – all of whom would come square into the sights of the 100,000+ cartel foot soldiers intent on stopping them.
Beefed up border security – electronic fence or otherwise – is also necessary. So is a continuing and cooperative effort between U.S. and Mexican government officials, law enforcement, and others in devising and implementing an effective strategy to stop the violence. After the recent drug cartel-related bloodbath, Mexican troops now total 45,000 as Mexican President Calderon vowed to do whatever is necessary to stem the carnage and decimate the cartels.
The border wars have been going on for years, but have only intensified since 2006. Although both U.S. and Mexican government officials say that the victims are mostly drug trafficking criminals and the law enforcement officials engaged in battle with them, there is spillover to innocent citizens. Assaults, kidnappings, torture, beheadings and murders are happening to an ever-increasing number of people – not all of whom belong to either drug cartels or law enforcement. Some of these victims are American citizens. The time has come to mount a concerted effort to stop the bloody battle on the border over drugs and money. Without such an effort, the trail of damaged and destroyed lives in its wake in both countries is too much to contemplate or accept.
Can the border wars be stopped? Will they be? Only time will tell.
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Imagine heroin addicts ordering their daily fix by cell phone, just as easily as calling for a home-delivery pizza. That’s the ingenious business model employed by the enterprising immigrant boys from Xalisco, Mexico to not only introduce U.S. customers to Mexican black tar heroin but also to get them hooked. Black tar heroin is inexpensive, readily available, and highly addictive – three ingredients to a business model guaranteed to supply long-term customers.
How did this all come to pass? Let’s take a look.
Xalisco Boys – The Origins of the Network
The story of how Mexican black tar heroin made its way to the United States has been well documented by L. A. Time’s reporter Sam Quinones in The Heroin Road, a three-part series. Sugar cane farm boys from Xalisco, in the Pacific state of Nayarit, Mexico, flocked to the U.S., lured by the opportunity to make money to send home to their families. They would become dealers, of sorts, working for Xalisco drug bosses, purveyors of Mexican black tar heroin. But that’s more toward the end of the story. How the network came to be didn’t just happen overnight.
The idea was cooked up in the early 1990s by two men serving time in the Northern Nevada Correctional Center. The crimes for which they were incarcerated – drug offenses. One of the men, who called himself Max, knew about heroin trade in the U.S., and said his partner, a native of Xalisco, had access to both workers and black tar back in his hometown. Xalisco County (the town of Xalisco and a number of other villages) is made up of a lot of ranchos and small villages, each ferociously independent. Thus, there could be no single person controlling a cartel.
Once the system was in place, the two partners got down to serious work. They paid money to the Arellano-Felix cartel for permission to bring the black tar heroin across the border in Tijuana. They then set up a business model and a heroin ring in Reno, Nevada.
Max and his partner disdained the old way of selling heroin out of houses, which were easy targets for police and Drug Enforcement Agency raids. Instead, they devised a unique selling and delivery method. Customers would call a number, and the dealers would get a page, and then deliver the agreed-upon drugs via car – directly to the customer. The dealers would only carry the black tar heroin in tiny uninflated balloons they held in their mouths. If they got arrested, the charges would be less severe due to the small amount. And, they didn’t drive expensive drug trafficking organization (DTO) makes like Cadillac Escalades. They drove beaters or inexpensive sedans, clean but not too flashy. They dressed modestly and never carried guns, didn’t engage in violence of any kind. All this was designed not to draw attention.
Another part of the Xalisco boys unique business model involves selling to white middle-class, working clientele – and not to African Americans or Latinos. In cities, especially, where there are plenty of young white people, there is no shortage of black tar heroin customers. In addition, Mexican black tar heroin is marketed as a cheap and easy substitute for OxyContin, Percocet and other prescription painkillers. This strategy has been particularly successful in parts of the country where there are high addiction rates to these painkillers, in such areas as California, the nation’s Rust Belt, and Appalachia.
Max and his partner are not the only Xalisco boys starting up their own networks for Mexican black tar heroin in the U.S. Once the word spread, systems began cropping up all over the place. Immigrants told friends and family back in Xalisco and soon other farm boys got in on the bandwagon, all eager to make a little money and climb out of poverty. It wasn’t about flashy cars and big homes and all the material things – at least, not at first. It did, however, help lift families hard hit and maybe put in a new TV, fix the plumbing, pay for children’s schooling and a few modest pleasures. The Xalisco boys began as drivers, earning up to $1,000 a week, putting in their time to learn the business, to see how things were done. Then, back home in Xalisco, they’d assemble their own supplies of black tar before returning to the states as crew chiefs.
In the Mexican black tar heroin business, it’s all about who gets the customers. Price wars are not uncommon, either, as one outfit seeks to undercut another – and secure the most clientele. In the push to get new users, dealers offered addicts rewards for referrals – 8 to 10 free balloons for every $1,000 of business they brought in.
Staging Places: Southern California and Phoenix
Nothing if not ingenious, the Xalisco drug bosses steered clear of established heroin organizations in the big cities of the U.S., opting instead to use Southern California and Phoenix, Arizona as their staging base of operations. Networks have sprung up in, among other places, Boise, Idaho; Indianapolis, Indiana; Nashville, Tennessee; Reno, Nevada; Salt Lake City, Utah; and Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. From there, the sticky stuff (black tar heroin is dark and sticky, hence the name) wends its way into the suburbs and small towns of America.
Until the late 1990s, Mexican black tar heroin was generally confined to the Western part of the country (West of the Mississippi). To the East, Columbian powder heroin reigned. That all changed within the last decade, due, in part, to U.S.-funded efforts to eradicate Columbian poppy fields. The 2009 National Drug Threat Assessment issued by the U.S. Justice Department says Mexican heroin production reached an estimated 18 metric tons in 2007. It is estimated that black tar heroin now accounts for two-thirds of the heroin market in this country. According to the Assessment, Mexican DTOs are the greatest drug trafficking threat to the U.S. They maintain drug distribution networks or supply drugs to distributors in more than 230 U.S. cities and generate billions of dollars in illicit proceeds annually.
A drug problem, combined with a gambling addiction, helped to drive a spree of thefts committed by Noah Schapiro. This drug addicted Williamsville debt collector has been ordered by State Supreme Court Justice Christopher J. Burns to serve a six- to 12-year prison term and repay 21 victims and a bank a total of $433,168.
As more and more media attention is focused on the drug wars occurring in Mexico and along the U.S. and Mexican borders, the realization that it is the U.S. appetite for drugs that is fueling the flames is often forgotten.
Foreign nationals who appear at a US entry, but are inadmissible, are typically deported back to their home country. Foreign nationals who are already in the US are also subject to deportation if they engage in prohibited activity while here. Deportation of foreign nationals is regulated by Immigration & Nationality Act section 237.
It is much easier to get deported from, than be granted admission to, the United States. While the grounds of inadmissibility cover many non-criminal matters, the majority of the grounds of deportation deal with crime. Thus, it is not surprising that the federal government focuses most of its immigration enforcement resources on criminal aliens. Commission of a crime involving moral turpitude, commission of an aggravated felony, high-speed flight from an immigration checkpoint, failure to register as a sex offender, commission of a controlled substance violation (except simple possession of 30 grams of less or marijuana), being labeled a drug abuser or drug addict, commission of a firearms offense, commission of a natural security offense, or commission of a crime of domestic violence can make someone deportable.
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Horrible images of kidnap victims tortured and held for ransom have long been the norm in Mexico, the number one kidnapping capital of the world. There, judges, police officers and others are targeted by the Mexican drug cartels and abductions are as common as graffiti-marked buildings. But the kidnapping problem has spilled over to the United States, specifically to Phoenix, Arizona. America’s fifth largest city, Phoenix has a population of 1.6 million people, and covers an area of 517 square miles (larger than Los Angeles). The threat is ever-present on Phoenix streets – and has been since 2005 when the metro area gained the dubious distinction of America’s kidnapping capital. With its numbers right behind Mexico, Phoenix is the number two kidnapping capital of the world.
Numbers Tell the Story
The kidnapping problem in Phoenix, however, as widely reported by various news agencies in the past year, involves victims who are either illegal aliens or connected to the drug trade. Some officials have commented that all the Phoenix kidnappings are connected to illegal immigration but that the actual numbers (359 in 2007, a 10-year high, 366 in 2008, and 302 for the first 11 months of 2009) account for just one-third of the reported kidnappings taking place in the metropolitan area. People are just not reporting all the kidnappings.
The situation has gotten so bad that the fear is anyone who looks like they have money is in danger of being kidnapped. According to news stories, ransoms have ranged from $30,000 to $1 million. Some have even included demands for large drug loads. An L.A. Times story in February 2009 quoted Phoenix police saying that most every victim and suspect is connected to the drug smuggling world, usually tracing back to the Mexican state of Sinaloa. Phoenix police say many come from the Sinaloan towns of Guasave, Leyva, and Los Mochis.
While drug cartels control everything in Mexico, in the U.S., and Arizona in particular, it’s a slightly different story. Police say control by the cartels is weak in Phoenix, and the kidnappers with guns are the ones in power. And they use it.
Kidnappers reportedly recruit workers by going to popular bars in Phoenix such as Bronco Bar, Senor Lucky’s, and El Grand Mercado, according to the Times’ story.
Arizona has become the gateway to the U.S. for Mexican drug trafficking. Roughly half of all the marijuana intercepted along the U.S.-Mexican border is seized along the state’s 370-mile border, which is criticized as having a “lack of border security.”
Dealing with the “money drops” entails tying up 50 to 60 police officers for each ransom demand, officials say. That’s to ensure the protection of the officers as well as the victims.
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