Pubdate: Thu, 18 Aug 2005
Source: USA Today (US)
Page: 8A
Copyright: 2005 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc
Contact:  http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/index.htm
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/466
Author: Danna Harman, USA TODAY
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topics/Mexico (Mexico)

MEXICAN DRUG CARTELS' WARS MOVE CLOSER TO U.S. BORDER

Rival Kingpins Are Battling Authorities and One Another for Control 
of Trafficking Corridors

CIUDAD JUREZ, Mexico - The kingpins of this hemisphere's illegal drug 
trade are no longer Colombians.

In the largest shake-up since the 1980s, Mexican cartels have 
leveraged the profits from their delivery routes to wrest control 
from Colombian producers, senior U.S. drug officials say. The shift 
also is the result of the success Colombian and U.S. authorities have 
had in cracking down on Colombia's drug lords.

"Today, the Mexicans have taken over and are running the organized 
crime, and getting the bulk of the money," says John Walters, the 
White House drug czar. "The Colombians have pulled back."

Walters says Mexican drug lords are calling the shots in what the 
United Nations estimates is a $142-billion-a-year business in 
cocaine, heroin, marijuana, methamphetamine and other illicit drugs 
on America's streets. One consequence of the new dominance of the 
Mexican cartels is a spike in violence along the 2,000-mile 
U.S.-Mexico border, where rival cartels are battling law enforcement 
authorities and one another for control of transit corridors.

This week, Govs. Bill Richardson of New Mexico and Janet Napolitano 
of Arizona declared emergencies along their borders with Mexico, 
claiming counties there are reeling from growing drug trafficking, 
violence and illegal migration.

Jorge Chabat, a Mexican scholar who studies the illegal drug trade, 
says that Colombian cartels still produce most of the hemisphere's 
cocaine and heroin. But Mexican gangs have taken control of the most 
profitable part of the trade - transport to the U.S. and distribution 
there, says Chabat, an expert at the Center for Economic Research and 
Teaching, a Mexico City university.

Chabat says Mexico's most powerful drug gangs are: The Gulf cartel 
headed by Osiel Crdenas; the Sinaloa cartel run by Joaquin "El Chapo" 
Guzmn; the Tijuana cartel led by Ramn Arellano-Felix; and the Jurez 
cartel run by Vicente Carrillo.

"With the successful dismantling of some of the biggest cartels in 
Colombia, it was only natural that the Mexicans, who had for years 
had close contacts with the Colombians and knew the routes and the 
business, would take over," says Chabat. "Now, they are fighting 
among themselves."

Cocaine and heroin bound for the USA typically are flown by small 
plane from Colombia to Mexico, while marijuana and methamphetamine 
are produced in Mexico, says Ron Brooks, president of the U.S. 
National Narcotics Officers Association in West Covina, Calif.

 From Mexico, drug shipments usually are loaded onto boats or into 
private cars and commercial trucks crossing the border. (U.S. Border 
Patrol statistics show that 90 million private vehicles and 4.4 
million trucks crossed from Mexico into the USA in 2004.)

The U.S. Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement 
Affairs says up to 90% of the cocaine sold in the USA last year came 
through Mexico. Mexico is also the No. 2 maker of heroin bound for 
the USA and the largest foreign source of marijuana and producer of 
methamphetamine.

Mexican criminal groups now control sales in the 13 metropolitan 
areas considered to be the USA's primary distribution centers, says 
the bureau's latest report, released in March.

Mexican President Vicente Fox said Tuesday that the U.S. should stop 
complaining that Mexico's anti-drug efforts have fallen short. "What 
is being done on (the U.S.) side?"

Nuevo Laredo, a city of 350,000 across the Rio Grande from Laredo, 
Texas, has been hit hardest by the drug war violence this year. Of 
850 killings that Mexican police attributed to drug-related violence, 
228 have taken place in Nuevo Laredo or the surrounding state of 
Tamaulipas. In Nuevo Laredo, the murder victims have included 21 
police officers and two police chiefs.

A senior U.S. law enforcement official and local police depict it as 
a battle between the Sinaloa cartel's Guzmn, who escaped from a 
maximum-security prison in 2001 in a laundry cart, and Crdenas, the 
Gulf cartel boss behind bars in a prison near Mexico City.

"There really is a feeling that you can get away with murder in Nuevo 
Laredo," Michael Yoder, the U.S. consul general in Nuevo Laredo, said 
last week. Tony Garza, U.S. ambassador to Mexico, closed the U.S. 
consulate in Nuevo Laredo for a week earlier this month after a 
shootout between Mexican drug traffickers firing high-powered rifles, 
rocket-propelled grenades, and bazookas.

Rolando Alvarado Navarrete, head of the federal police in Ciudad 
Jurez, a city of 1.5 million across the border from El Paso, says his 
priority these days is to prevent the Nuevo Laredo-type violence from 
spreading to his turf. So far, rivals have not mounted strong 
challenges to the Jurez cartel, so "there is no such similar battle 
for power under way here," Alvarado Navarrete says.

The Mexican federal police investigative teams commanded by Alvarado 
Navarrete, working with state and municipal police, conduct daily 
drug raids here. But their underworld adversaries still do a booming business.

In 2000, police here carried out 40 major drug busts. This year, so 
far, there have been 200.

"I am not waiting until we become another Nuevo Laredo," says Linda 
Lincoln, a 21-year-old mother of two, doing her shopping in a Ciudad 
Jurez supermarket. She says she wants to move across to El Paso 
because there are drug sales and shootings in her neighborhood each 
night. "The violence is getting too ugly now," she says. "I want my 
kids to grow up in a safe place."

Arthur Werge, FBI special agent in El Paso, points to El Paso's 
relatively low crime rate as evidence the violence is stopping at the 
border. "People cross over and abide by the law," he says. "We won't 
tolerate anything else. ... You won't find people driving around with 
AK-47s, executing police officers or throwing bodies wrapped up in 
blankets on the side of the road. ... And you won't find people 
running red lights either. Things are different here."

But others, including Walters, the director the U.S. Office of 
National Drug Control Policy, say it's only a matter of time before 
the border violence crosses into the USA. "The killing of rival 
traffickers is already spilling across the border," he says. 
"Witnesses are being killed. We do not think the border is a shield."

Since Fox took office in 2000, Mexico has arrested 36,000 drug 
traffickers, including top figures from almost all the cartels, 
according to the National Center for Analysis Planning and 
Intelligence against Organized Crime in Mexico City.

More than 2,000 Mexican police officers have been investigated for 
drug-related corruption; 711 officers have been charged with offenses 
ranging from taking bribes offered by cartels to drug-related 
kidnapping and murder. The former state police chief in Ciudad Jurez 
is under investigation for murder.

Some are concerned the crackdown has added to violence, at least 
temporarily, and Walters acknowledges the arrests have produced 
unwanted consequences.

"President Fox has taken an aggressive role which leads to ... power 
vacuums and destabilization, with one cartel attacking the other," he 
says. "In a way, the violence is terrible but also a sign that the 
cartels are being squeezed by government."

Chabat says Fox has gone far in fighting the cartels - but not far 
enough. He likens the Mexican president to a "poor guy trying to 
impress a rich girl" - the United States. "He gets a nice car for the 
evening, but does not have money for flowers." Fox has arrested some 
top drug lords, but is unable or unwilling to reform the justice 
system or police enough to finish the job, Chabat says.

U.S. officials claim Mexico's reluctance to extradite top drug 
criminals - as Colombia has - is hampering efforts. Colombia has sent 
173 drug suspects to the USA since 2002, including many major 
figures. Mexico extradited a record 34 in 2004, but none were 
considered drug bosses.

"I understand the difficulty in extraditing nationals, but left in 
Mexican jails these people continue to run the show," Walters says.

"And the show," adds Jurez police chief Alvarado Navarrete, "is not a 
pretty one." 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake