Pubdate: Sun, 06 Nov 2005
Source: Charlotte Observer (NC)
Copyright: 2005 The Charlotte Observer
Contact:  http://www.charlotte.com/mld/observer/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/78
Author: Olga R. Rodriguez, Associated Press
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Cannabis)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/heroin.htm (Heroin)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/meth.htm (Methamphetamine)

MEXICO'S DRUG LORDS NOW MOST POWERFUL

As Top Supplier to U.S., Nation Passes Colombia in Narcotics Influence

MIGUEL ALEMAN, Mexico - Hit men, pistols tucked in their pants and
walkie-talkies strapped to their belts, move freely in this city of
sorghum farmers and cattle ranchers, dropping off their ostrich-skin
boots with shoe-shine boys in the city's plaza and stopping at local
bars for a beer.

The openness with which they operate -- in countless towns across
Mexico -- reflects the drug cartels' grip on this nation of nearly 100
million people, and the power they have gained as the top supplier for
Americans' $65 billion illegal drug habit.

Mexico's drug gangs have been highly successful in the past two
decades, gradually replacing Colombian gangs in the United States to
control the profitable distribution of cocaine from
coast-to-coast.

Colombia remains the world's largest producer, but Larry Holifield,
the DEA's director for Mexico and Central America, told The Associated
Press that Mexican cartels are now the most powerful in the world.

In 2003, Mexican traffickers supplied 77 percent of the cocaine that
entered the United States. In 2004, it was 92 percent, Anthony
Placido, the top DEA intelligence official, told a congressional panel
in June.

The other 8 percent moved through the Caribbean.

Mexican gangs also dominate the growing methamphetamine trade,
producing 53 percent of the drugs on the market in "super-labs" in
Mexico as the U.S. tightens its laws. Much of the rest is made in
clandestine labs in California, also run by Mexicans, U.S. officials
say.

And as has been the case for nearly 100 years, Mexico is the biggest
marijuana supplier to the U.S. and produces nearly half the heroin
consumed north of the border, behind only Colombia.

The drug trade permeates life in Mexico. In Miguel Aleman, drug
traffickers boost the local economy and rule with a combination of
fear and awe, threatening or bribing anyone who dares to try to stop
them.

In this city of 35,000 across from Roma, Texas, hit men are easily
identified by their bulletproof pickup trucks and sport utility vehicles.

The traffickers have lookouts at every entrance to the city and
informants on bicycles looking for anyone suspicious, townspeople say.
They will photograph newcomers, including reporters, and question strangers.

The traffickers "speed through the street, drive against traffic and
run red lights. But here, no one says anything to them," said a
businessman who requested anonymity for fear of reprisals. "Here, they
are the law."

Network of Power Growing

The Mexican rise to power is rooted in the U.S. crackdown on drug
trafficking through the Caribbean in the 1980s, which pushed
Colombians to use Central America and Mexico as a major transshipment
point.Colombians began paying their Mexican counterparts in cocaine,
rather than cash, reducing the need to launder money. That gave
Mexican gangs an opening to begin taking over distribution in the
United States.

Colombian gangs, facing tough extradition laws at home and stiff U.S.
penalties, have largely gone into hiding in Colombia and now focus on
production rather than distribution.

In the United States, Mexicans have long controlled distribution in
the West and Midwest. But they are also moving into the East Coast,
controlling cocaine movement from New York City's lucrative market to
other eastern cities, the DEA said in a report this year.

Colombians and Caribbean gangs still mostly control street sales in
the region, however, and are responsible for the drug trade in Miami,
according to the U.N. 2005 World Drug Report.

Guatemala has become a crucial stopover for Colombian cocaine, its
shores the destination for most of the so-called "go-fasts" -- boats
that move the bulk of cocaine north. From Guatemala, the drugs are
smuggled into Mexico and moved overland to the U.S.-Mexico border.

As Guatemala's importance grows, drug gangs there have begun trying to
form a cartel to control all of Central America, Guatemala's top drug
investigator, Adan Castillo, told AP.

Consolidating Forces

Most Mexican drug gangs are led by former farmers or police officers
from the Pacific Coast state of Sinaloa, an agricultural area where
trafficking in illicit substances dates to Prohibition.

The country's two top drug gangs are the Juarez Cartel, based in
Ciudad Juarez, across from El Paso, Texas, and the Gulf Cartel, based
in Matamoros, across from Brownsville, Texas.

Gaining ground is Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, an alleged ally of the
Juarez cartel who escaped from a maximum-security prison in 2001 and
has been warring for control of smuggling routes along the U.S-Mexico
border.

Once mortal enemies, Gulf Cartel leader Osiel Cardenas and his Tijuana
counterpart, Benjamin Arellano Felix, have united in jail, hoping to
keep both ends of the border under their control, said Jose Luis
Santiago Vasconcelos, Mexico's top anti-narcotics prosecutor.

"Groups like the one led by El Chapo Guzman are trying to position
themselves and, as they fight for drugs and territory and also kill
out of personal vengeance, that creates a greater wave of violence,"
Vasconcelos told AP.

After taking office in 2000, Mexican President Vicente Fox launched a
crackdown, netting several kingpins, including Arellano Felix and Cardenas.

But the arrests have done nothing to slow the flow north, with
seizures in 2004 increasing 25 percent over 2003. Last year, Mexico
seized 27.5 tons of cocaine, and 24.7 tons more were confiscated
entering the United States, mainly through Texas, the DEA intelligence
official Placido told U.S. lawmakers.

The U.S. government estimates that Americans spend $65 billion a year
on drugs -- some $20 billion more than on alcohol.

Mexican traffickers' profits have allowed them to buy off hundreds of
law enforcement officials here, including the head of Mexico's
anti-drug agency, Gen. Jesus Gutierrez Rebollo, fired in 1997 and now
jailed.

They also often provide the only steady, high-paying jobs in rural
Mexico, and buy popularity by helping renovate a church or outfit
youth soccer leagues.

But recent arrests have sparked a turf battle that forced Mexico to
send soldiers and federal agents to many key cities along the
1,900-mile border.

The worst violence this year has been in Nuevo Laredo, 100 miles east
of Miguel Aleman. More than 150 people have died, including a new
police chief, gunned down eight hours after taking office in June.  --
AP writers Sergio de Leon in Guatemala City and Abe Levy in San
Antonio contributed.

[sidebar]

FACTS AND FIGURES

Follow the Money

*  $13 billion: estimated value of global illicit drug market in 2003
at production level.  $94 billion: estimated value at the wholesale
level.

*  $322 billion: estimated value at retail level.

*  $70.5 billion: estimated value of cocaine alone at retail
level.

*  $17 billion: value of exports worldwide of wine in
2003.

*  $6 billion: value of exports worldwide of coffee.

Share of Purchases, Profits

*  44 percent: North America's share of worldwide drug
purchases.

*  33 percent: Europe's share of worldwide drug purchases.

*  76 percent: share of total drug profits generated in industrialized
countries.

*  1 percent: share of profits earned by producers of cocaine and
heroin in developing nations.

Sources: U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime; Drug Abuse Warning Network
(DAWN); DEA
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake