Pubdate: Tue, 29 May 2012
Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution (GA)
Website: http://www.ajc.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/28
Author: Mary Sanchez

TO STEM DRUG CARTELS, WE MUST CUT MONEY PIPELINE

"Follow the money" is a time-tested method of tracing malfeasance back
to its origins. Corporate scams, insider trading or, as former
presidential candidate John Edwards is learning, even sex scandals
fall to such tracking.

How can the U.S. government do a better job of stanching the flow of
drug cartel money across the U.S.-Mexico border? After all, that is
the motivating force behind the violence those criminal enterprises
are inflicting on both countries.

Terry Goddard, a former Arizona attorney general, convincingly argues
that the feds can do a much better job than they are now. He makes the
point in the last of a three-part series of articles he has written
about the U.S.-Mexico border for the Immigration Policy Center. (I
strongly recommend reading the entire series; the essays can be found
at the center's website: www.immigration
policy.org.)

"The most basic, the most effective approach to fighting organized
crime has always been to cut off their funds," Goddard writes. "But
this is not being done in the case of the cartels."

He's right. Politicians would rather talk tough about "sealing" the
2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border. But the highest fence you could build
would be but a gnat buzzing to the cartels. That such schemes dominate
public discussion of "border security" only proves that the cartels
and their sophisticated business practices are little understood in El
Norte.

Revenues from drug sales in the U.S. are estimated to be $64 billion
to $85 billion every year. Add human smuggling, another business in
the cartels' portfolios, and it's another $6 billion. This money is
laundered and sent to Mexico using a number of means, including wire
transfers, stored-value and prepaid access cards, currency brokers and
front businesses. Yet federal efforts to stop and seize this flow has
yielded paltry success.

Why? It doesn't seem to be a lack of understanding among federal
enforcement authorities so much as a lack of will.

During Goddard's time as Arizona attorney general, his office cracked
down on lax standards for wire transfers and used warrants to seize
suspected drug profits. A coalition of law enforcement, prosecutors
and others continues much of the efforts through the Southwest Border
Anti-Money Laundering Alliance. However, he and his colleagues found
that the cartels were very effective at adapting their practices to
evade these efforts, and were able to exploit jurisdictional limits.
Goddard could harry them in Arizona but could not crack down on them
in other states.

What's needed is more coordinated federal efforts to track monies
state-by-state, in addition to continued cooperation from Mexican
authorities. But even federal efforts in the right direction meet
political opposition. Attempts to put restrictions on the ability to
move funds out of the U.S. on stored-value instruments (think whopping
huge gift cards loaded with narco dollars) died at the hands of
industry lobbyists.

It would help if our political leaders learned to think of the cartels
not just as violent criminals but also as "transnational business
organizations," as Goddard terms them. They are ever shifting to avoid
the law and ready to launch new product lines when they see a market,
whether it be pirated music, movies, software or hijacking. They use
U.S. banks and financial transfer systems right under our noses,
funding the violence in Mexico to keep their business model strong.

The border is far more than a territorial marker, but rather "a
complex, multidimensional interrelationship of immigration laws,
cyberspace money transfers and international business connections,"
Goddard wrote in another essay.

If we don't grasp those concepts, our crime-fighting strategies will
continue to veer off course or completely miss their mark.

Goddard outlines a strategy for reshaping that picture. Is anyone
listening?
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MAP posted-by: Matt