Mexican Cartels 101

Finding yourself struggling with Mexican Cartels in drug cases and intelligence? There are several resources available to familiarize yourself with the various Transnational and Drug Trafficking Organizations operating on both sides of the border. The major groups include the following in no particular order: Tiajuana Cartel, Los Zetas (Beltran Leyva), Sinaloa Cartel, Juarez Cartel,Gulf Cartel, and La Familia. There are currently several areas in dispute with the different cartels engaged in violent struggles to maintain or expand their influence. Just yesterday, over 40 people were killed in a prison riot that occurred between members of the Zetas and Gulf Cartels.

For a good general summary of the Cartels, the New York Times ran this piece last fall. In addition, Longmire Consulting has a good blog and website that has a breakdown of each of the major groups and their spheres of influence. The National Drug Threat Assessment, available from the DEA (here) contains chapters regarding Transnational Drug Trafficking Organizations as well. Depending on the nature of your case, it may be advisable to seek an expert especially in a major drug or RICO prosecution.

Lawmakers to Open an Inquiry on Undercover Drug Operation

From The New York Times:

Congressional Republicans said Monday that they would open an investigation into undercover operations by the Drug Enforcement Administration in which agents have laundered and smuggled millions of dollars in drug money as part of an effort to help Mexico fight organized crime.

The operations, which drug officials said had the support and cooperation of the Mexican government, have funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars across borders and moved millions more through shell accounts to help American agents identify how criminal organizations move their money, where they keep their assets and who their leaders are.

Critics said the operations blur the line between surveillance and facilitating crime, raising questions similar to those around a gun-smuggling operation known as Fast and Furious that involves agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

The gun operation has been under investigation for months by Representative Darrell Issa, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. In a letter on Monday to Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., Mr. Issa said he would expand that investigation to include the drug agency, describing its money-laundering investigations as “dangerous schemes” and adding that “the consequences have been disastrous.”

Mr. Issa, Republican of California, asked Mr. Holder to provide a briefing on the undercover operations to his staff on Wednesday. He wrote, “It is almost unfathomable to contemplate the degree to which the United States government has made itself an accomplice to the drug trade, which has thus far left more than 40,000 people dead in Mexico.”

Drug Violence in Mexico

This February 2011 report, Drug Violence in Mexico, from the Trans-Border Institute of the Joan B. Croc School of Peace Studies, University of San Diego, has statistics and information about the violence throughout Mexico.  The following is the executive summary of the report.

Government data shed new light on the extent of drug violence in Mexico.

Recently released official figures on homicides associated with organized crime report levels of violence that are significantly higher than those tracked by media accounts, which were previously the only source of information publicly available.

Violence has increased sharply under Mexican President Felipe Calderón.

Four years into the administration of President Calderón (2006-12), 34,550 killings have been officially linked to organized crime, a dramatic increase from the previous administration of President Vicente Fox (2000-06) when 8,901 cases were identified.

In 2010, levels of violence greatly surpassed the levels seen in previous years.

Over 15,000 organized crime killings occurred in 2010, comprising 44% of the total number accumulated during the Calderón administration and representing an increase of nearly 60% with respect to the previous year.

Organized crime killings are geographically concentrated in certain states.

56% of all homicides from organized crime in 2010 occurred in just four of Mexico’s 32 states (Chihuahua, Sinaloa, Tamaulipas, and Guerrero). Most others have had much lower levels of violence, and several states have been virtually untouched by violence (Baja California Sur, Campeche, Querétaro, Tlaxcala, and Yucatán)

Over 70% of the violence in 2010 was concentrated in just 80 municipalities.

The top five most violent municipalities in 2010 were Ciudad Juárez (2,738 cases), Culiacán (587), Tijuana (472), Chihuahua (670), and Acapulco (370), which together accounted for 32% of all the drug-related homicides in 2010.

Several areas saw sharp increases due to new clashes among drug traffickers.

Four states experienced large, sudden spikes in violence during the course of the last year: San Luis Potosí (from 8 homicides in 2009 to 135 in 2010), Tamaulipas (90 to 209), Nayarit (37 to 377), and Nuevo León (112 to 604).

Violence increasingly targeted government officials and civilians in 2010.

An unprecedented number of elected officials, police, military, and civilians have been caught in the crossfire, including 14 mayors and 11 journalists.

Recent progress in dismantling drug cartels could have unpredictable effects.

In 2010, the Mexican government’s counter-drug efforts led to the capture of several high-profile traffickers, including Teodoro “El Teo” García Simental, Edgar “La Barbie” Valdez, and Nazario “El Chayo” Moreno. Authorities believe these arrests may help bring a reduction, if not an end to the violence, though the disruption of organized crime groups could also increase violence among traffickers.

Full report can be read here.

Leader of Mexican La Familia Cartel "El Chayo" Dead

Bloomberg Business Week

Nazario Moreno Gonzalez, the leader of Mexico’s La Familia drug cartel, was shot and killed December 8, 2010 by authorities in the western state of Michoacan, government security spokesman Alejandro Poire said today.

Moreno, known as “El Chayo,” was a founder of what the U.S. government calls “one of Mexico’s newest and most violent drug cartels.” The Mexican government had Moreno on its most- wanted list, offering 30 million pesos ($2.4 million) for information that could lead to his arrest.

Moreno was killed amid battles between security officials and gunmen that began Dec. 8 when cartel members traded fire with police in the city of Apatzingan. Gunmen then burned vehicles and blocked roads leading to the state capital of Morelia. The violence this week killed five federal policemen, three civilians and three gang members, Poire said.

“In recent days we’ve seen a criminal organization repudiated by the population and debilitated in a significant manner,” Poire said at a Mexico City news conference. “It’s the moment to intensify pressure on this organization.”

The government will increase the number of air and ground troops deployed in Michoacan, Poire said.

La Familia has operated in Michoacan since 2000, trafficking and producing drugs and committing acts of extortion, kidnapping and homicide, Poire said.

Mexico Gun Trafficking On Rise

Those working in criminal defense are all too familiar with illegal gun trafficking. No better way to get the feds attention than trading in illegal firearms. But an important question is where are those guns going and how are they being used. A new report by the University of San Diego indicates that massive quantities of U.S. weapons are being delivered to the cartels. U.S. efforts to stop the trafficking are having little effect.

The Washington Post carried a full story today (full article here):

According to authors Colby Goodman and Michel Marizco, at least 62,800 of the more than 80,000 firearms confiscated by Mexican authorities from December 2006 to February 2010 came from the United States. Guns are being smuggled across the border at a rate of up to 5,000 per year. The top two varieties are assault rifles: Romanian-made AK47s and clones of the Bushmaster AR-15. More than 2,000 police and federal agents are among the 28,000 killed in drug-related violence in the past four years. According to Mr. Goodman and Mr. Marizco, whose work was sponsored by the Woodrow Wilson Center and the University of San Diego, just one gun store in Houston supplied 339 assault weapons, rifles and pistols to cartel buyers in just 15 months -- which were responsible for the deaths of 18 Mexican law enforcement officers and civilians.

Are American Banks Helping Do the Laundry?

Full Article at available from Seattle Times here:

Since 2006, more than 22,000 people have been killed in drug-related battles. Among the dead are police, soldiers, journalists and ordinary citizens. The U.S. has pledged Mexico $1.1 billion in the past two years to aid in the fight against narcotics cartels.

Behind the carnage in Mexico is an industry that supplies hundreds of tons of cocaine, heroin, marijuana and methamphetamines to Americans. The cartels have built a network of dealers in 231 U.S. cities from coast to coast, taking in about $39 billion in sales annually, according to the Justice Department.

Twenty million people in the U.S. regularly use illegal drugs, spurring street crime and wrecking families. Narcotics cost the U.S. economy $215 billion a year — in overburdened courts, prisons and hospitals and lost productivity, the department says.

"It's the banks laundering money for the cartels that finances the tragedy," says Martin Woods, director of Wachovia's anti-money-laundering unit in London from 2006 to 2009. Woods says he quit the bank in disgust after executives ignored his documentation that drug dealers were funneling money through Wachovia's branch network.

"If you don't see the correlation between the money laundering by banks and the 22,000 people killed in Mexico, you're missing the point," Woods says.

Cleansing dirty cash

Wachovia is just one of the U.S. and European banks that have been used for drug- money laundering. For the past two decades, Latin American drug traffickers have gone to U.S. banks to cleanse their dirty cash, says Paul Campo, head of the financial-crimes unit of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).
American Express Bank paid fines in 1994 and 2007 after admitting it had failed to spot and report drug dealers laundering money through its accounts. Drug traffickers used accounts at Bank of America in Oklahoma City to buy three planes that carried 10 tons of cocaine, according to Mexican court filings.

Federal agents caught people who work for Mexican cartels depositing illicit funds in Bank of America accounts in Atlanta, Chicago and Brownsville, Texas, from 2002 to 2009. Mexican drug dealers used shell companies to open accounts at London-based HSBC Holdings, an investigation by the Mexican Finance Ministry found.

Saving Mexico, Legalizing Pot

This story from the Wall Street Journal (!) suggests that legalizing marijuana would be a win win situation for both the economy and to reduce violence in Mexico. The story comes in the wake of the killing of Arturo Beltrán Leyva, reputedly one of Mexico's largest cartel leaders. According to the DEA, Leyva was a drug trafficker whose organization helped smuggle several billion dollars worth of cocaine and marijuana into the U.S. during the past decade. Interestingly, former Seattle Police Chief Norm Stamper (and member of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition) said that Leyva's death did not represent an achievement for law enforcement in stopping cartel activity but rather represented a job opening for any number of his lieutenants who will step in.

Growing numbers of Mexican and U.S. officials say—at least privately—that the biggest step in hurting the business operations of Mexican cartels would be simply to legalize their main product: marijuana. Long the world's most popular illegal drug, marijuana accounts for more than half the revenues of Mexican cartels.

"Economically, there is no argument or solution other than legalization, at least of marijuana," said the top Mexican official matter-of-factly. The official said such a move would likely shift marijuana production entirely to places like California, where the drug can be grown more efficiently and closer to consumers. "Mexico's objective should be to make the U.S. self-sufficient in marijuana," he added with a grin.

Full article here.

Immigration Agents to Get Expanded Powers

From the New York Times:

In an expansion of its crackdown on drug cartels, the Obama administration plans to announce Thursday that it will give Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents the authority to investigate drug crimes. Justice Department officials refused to divulge details of their plans, saying they did not want to pre-empt the news conference. But officials familiar with the plan said it would settle a long-running turf battle between the immigration agency and the Drug Enforcement Administration that has seriously undermined the efforts of both. The decision came amid drug-related violence that left more than 6,000 people dead in Mexico last year. Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, called the Justice Department’s decision “welcome news,” saying, “The cartels that smuggle drugs and illegal immigrants have integrated their activities, and now the federal agencies will have a better integrated response.”

Mexico Drug Spy Allegedly Leaked DEA Info

From the AP:

A major drug cartel has infiltrated the Mexican attorney general's office, and one cartel worker says he even spied on DEA operations from inside U.S. Embassy, Mexican prosecutors said Monday.

Five officials of the Attorney General's Organized Crime unit were arrested on allegations they served as informants for the Beltran-Leyva Cartel, Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora said, adding there are indications that other spies still work inside his agency.

The Embassy employee, who also worked for Interpol at the Mexico City airport, is a protected witness after telling Mexican officials in Washington that he leaked details of Drug Enforcement Administration operations, an attorney general's official told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. He said he was not authorized to speak on the record.

U.S. Embassy officials had no immediate comment, saying they generally avoid discussing internal operating or security issues.

Separately, a U.S. official announced Monday that a high-ranking Mexican immigration official had been caught in Arizona with 170 pounds of marijuana in his vehicle.

The revelations of corruption inside the control centers of the U.S.-Mexican anti-drug effort were a major blow to President Felipe Calderon's anti-drug campaign, in which he has sent tens of thousands of troops and federal police across Mexico to combat violent cartels.

Calderon himself has long acknowledged corruption is widespread in police forces. Monday's case represents the most serious known infiltration of anti-crime agencies since the 1997 arrest of Gen. Jesus Gutierrez Rebollo, then head of Mexico's anti-drug agency. Gutierrez Rebollo was later convicted of aiding drug lord Amado Carrillo Fuentes.

Despite the corruption, Mexico continues to arrest top smugglers. The latest victory came Saturday with the arrest of Eduardo Arellano Felix after a shootout in Tijuana, across the border from San Diego. He had allegedly been running the Arellano Felix cartel with his sister since several brothers were arrested or killed.

Assistant Attorney General Marisela Morales said two top employees of her organized-crime unit and at least three federal police agents assigned to it may have been passing information on surveillance targets and potential raids for at least four years.

One of the officials was an assistant intelligence director and the other served as a liaison in requesting searches and assigning officers to carry them out.

All but one of the officials were arrested weeks ago.

The agents and officials each received payments of between $150,000 and $450,000 per month for the information, Morales said.

The Embassy infiltrator gave details of his involvement to Mexican officials in Washington, the prosecutors official said, but it is unclear if he is under Mexican or U.S. protection. The official did not give details of the information he allegedly passed on to the cartel.

Mexican Drug Cartel Takes over California

U.S. Is Arms Bazaar for Mexican Cartels

The Mexican agents who moved in on a safe house full of drug dealers last May were not prepared for the fire power that greeted them.

When the shooting was over, eight agents were dead. Among the guns the police recovered was an assault rifle traced back across the border to a dingy gun store here called X-Caliber Guns.
Now, the owner, George Iknadosian, will go on trial on charges he sold hundreds of weapons, mostly AK-47 rifles, to smugglers, knowing they would send them to a drug cartel in the western state of Sinaloa. The guns helped fuel the gang warfare in which more than 6,000 Mexicans died last year.

Mexican authorities have long complained that American gun dealers are arming the cartels. This case is the most prominent prosecution of an American gun dealer since the United States promised Mexico two years ago it would clamp down on the smuggling of weapons across the border. It also offers a rare glimpse of how weapons delivered to American gun dealers are being moved into Mexico and wielded in horrific crimes.

“We had a direct pipeline from Iknadosian to the Sinaloa cartel,” said Thomas G. Mangan, a spokesman for the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in Phoenix.
Drug gangs seek out guns in the United States because the gun-control laws are far tougher in Mexico. Mexican civilians must get approval from the military to buy guns and they cannot own large-caliber rifles or high-powered pistols, which are considered military weapons.

Full article here.