Pubdate: Fri, 03 Aug 2001
Source: WorldNetDaily (US Web)
Copyright: 2001 WorldNetDaily.com, Inc.
Contact:  http://www.worldnetdaily.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/655

BORDER DRUG CRACKDOWN A WASTE?

U.S.-Mexico Agreement Will Not Likely Slow Thriving Cartels

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The Bush administration is strengthening ties between U.S. and Mexican law 
enforcement agencies after years of mutual distrust and suspicion. The 
effort may lead to better statistics for drug seizures, arrests and 
deportations, but it will not slow organized criminal activity on the 
border. Cartels are thriving and exploring alliances with each other and 
with international criminal outfits.

U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft and his Mexican counterpart Rafael 
Macedo de la Concha announced on July 26 a new bilateral initiative to 
fight drug trafficking, arms smuggling and illegal immigration on the 
U.S.-Mexico border.

The agreement signals a new phase in relations between U.S. and Mexican law 
enforcement agencies, characterized for many years by mutual distrust and 
suspicion.

The new accord may lead to more narcotics seizures and the occasional drug 
kingpin's fall. But Mexico's top drug cartels will continue to thrive, 
exploring new strategic alliances with each other and with organized 
criminal enterprises in the United States, Latin America and Europe. 
Forming such alliances will make it easier to stay ahead of the law.

Drug trafficking earns Mexico $30 billion a year and accounts for about 10 
percent of the country's wealth, according to Mexican journalist Carlos 
Loret de Mola. Two-thirds of the cocaine smuggled into the United States 
comes through Mexico. Moreover, Mexico's increasingly sophisticated drug 
cartels are continually adapting their operations to changes in policing 
tactics on both sides of the border.

Adolfo Aguilar Zinser, national security adviser to President Vicente Fox, 
says Mexico's war on drugs is not winnable. Fox has nevertheless launched 
an aggressive effort to capture the country's increasingly powerful drug 
traffickers and disrupt their operations.

For instance, Fox expanded the Mexican military's role in counternarcotics 
efforts, assigning 30,000 soldiers to combat drug trafficking. He also 
purged hundreds of corrupt federal and local police officials and 
prosecutors, and he facilitated the extradition of Mexican nationals wanted 
on drug charges in the United States.

Drug seizures by Mexican police and military units have increased in the 
past year as a result, and several drug kingpins have been arrested, 
including Alcides Ramon Magana, a top leader of the Gulf Coast cartel, and 
Adam Amezcua, leader of the Colima cartel and known in Mexico as the king 
of amphetamines.

Corrupt politicians and military officers also have been arrested in Mexico 
recently on drug-related charges, including Mario Villanueva, a former 
state governor, and Army Brig. Gen. Ricardo Martinez, commander of the 21st 
Motorized Cavalry Regiment in Nuevo Laredo, who was charged with protecting 
drug traffickers operating on Mexico's Gulf Coast.

He is the sixth Mexican general imprisoned on drug-related charges since 
the 1997 arrest of Gen. Jesus Gutierrez Rebollo, who at the time was the 
chief of all Mexican anti-drug efforts.

Mexico's top drug lords have responded to the government's cleanup effort 
by exploring new strategic alliances with each other and with criminal 
organizations internationally.

Last April, for instance, according to an Associated Press report, 60 
Mexican drug traffickers held a three-day meeting in Apodaca, an industrial 
town in northeastern Mexico, to discuss ways of creating a new mega-cartel 
after 12 years of warfare between rival gangs.

The report said the meeting was called in response to the Fox government's 
tough new anti-drug policies. Besides the Mexican drug lords and their 
bodyguards, two men in Mexican military uniforms bearing general's stars 
and a group of Colombians also participated in the summit.

The only major drug-trafficking group that did not send representatives was 
the Tijuana cartel, led by the Arellano Felix brothers, which accounts for 
about 20 percent of the illegal narcotics smuggled annually into the United 
States from Mexico.

Instead of merging its operations with other Mexican cartels, the Tijuana 
gang has opted for developing strategic alliances with Russian, Colombian 
and Peruvian criminal enterprises.

Evidence of the Tijuana cartel's overseas associations has been 
accumulating since the end of last year.

On May 3 the U.S. Coast Guard intercepted the Belize-flagged Svesda Maru, a 
fishing vessel carrying 13 tons of cocaine about 1,500 miles south of San 
Diego. The crew comprised eight Ukrainians and two Russians, and U.S. 
authorities believe they must have had the permission of the Tijuana cartel 
to ship this much cocaine to the U.S. West Coast, according to AP.

U.S. officials in southern California reportedly suspect the Russian and 
Ukrainian crew of belonging to a Russian organized crime syndicate in Los 
Angeles, where between 600 to 800 known Russian crime figures live, mostly 
in the North and West Hollywood areas.

A 1999 California Department of Justice report found that Russian crime 
groups based in Los Angeles also had formed alliances with La Cosa Nostra 
in North America, Colombian cartels in Latin America and with the Sicilian 
mafia in Europe.

The Tijuana cartel also did business with former Peruvian spy chief 
Vladimiro Montesinos, who is now jailed in Lima on charges including drug 
trafficking, money laundering, arms smuggling, bribery and murder. The 
Mexico City daily El Universal reported July 8, based on Peruvian 
intelligence documents, that the Tijuana cartel purchased 18 tons of 
cocaine from Montesinos between 1995 and 1999. Peruvian government 
officials in Lima confirmed the report's accuracy.

The new alliances give Mexico's cartels more resources and influence, new 
drug shipment and transportation routes, and allow them to disperse 
shipments to reduce seizures and lost revenue.

The cartels also gain access to more markets, including expansion in the 
United States, where 57 Mexican drug enterprises are operating in North 
Texas alone. The additional revenues can go toward the $500 million the 
cartels already spend to bribe officials to avoid the law.

It was not a coincidence that the new U.S.-Mexico initiative was announced 
officially in San Diego, across the border from Tijuana where the Arellano 
Felix brothers have operated freely for more than 15 years, longer than any 
other drug cartel in Mexico.

Ashcroft pledged a tough crackdown on weapons smuggling from the United 
States to Mexico. In return, de la Concha declared the Fox government was 
"determined to capture" the Arellano Felix brothers.

It will take far more than emphatic rhetoric, however, to capture the 
Tijuana cartel's chieftains. The Arellano Felix brothers' cartel is one of 
Mexico's bloodiest. Law enforcement officials on both sides of the 
U.S.-Mexico border estimate conservatively that the brothers are directly 
responsible for more than 500 murders.

If the Fox government targets the Tijuana cartel for annihilation, the 
Arellano Felix brothers will very likely retaliate by murdering more police 
and government officials.

The campaign won't just be limited to Mexican personnel though. The 
increase in U.S.-Mexico cooperation will lead to even more U.S. officials 
operating in Mexico, where it's likely that the Tijuana cartel will seek to 
kidnap and kill U.S. counter-drug agents.
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