Mexico's Drug War

Mexico’s Drug War is Our War, Too

It’s the phone call every Mexican immigrant in America dreads—the anonymous, vulgar, and threatening voice demanding ransom for a family member’s release. Such an event can throw an entire family into distress, calling distant relatives, friends, friends of friends, and anyone else who might be able to lend money. And even if a ransom can be gathered together, that’s no guarantee a kidnapping victim in Mexico will be released.

But why should Americans care? Because this horror, this distress, fear, and chaos could be happening to a Mexican family you know, you live next to, or you come across every day.

The drug war in Mexico is like cancer; everyone there either knows someone who has survived it, or knows someone who has died from it. Most Americans don’t understand the connection that’s maintained between Mexican immigrants in the US and their friends and family in Mexico. Word of mouth is very powerful, and often when a Mexican national gets deported, people in Mexico usually their friend or family member is on the way home. Especially in smaller communities, it’s easy to discover most people’s whereabouts, which is why it’s typical for a kidnapper to be able to contact a kidnap victim’s relatives in the US relatively quickly.

The nature of the Mexico’s drug war has changed quite a bit in the last seven years. It used to be that only the “bad guys”—people directly involved in the drug business—were killing or getting killed themselves. But as drug trafficking revenue shrinks due to enforcement efforts and competition between TCOs, criminals have had to turn to other methods of generating profits. As kidnapping for ransom has grown in popularity in Mexico, so has the targeting of innocent people—namely, Mexican and Central American migrants headed north, or Mexican citizens with family members already living in the U.S.

The problem is, Mexican TCOs view immigrants—legal or otherwise—as a potential source of easy cash. Many migrants pay a smuggler, known as a coyote, several thousand dollars to ensure safe passage to, then across, the US-Mexico border. TCO thugs and border bandits know these migrants had a source of cash to pay the coyotes, and assume there must be more where that came from.

They also know migrants usually have friends and/or family members already living in the US. Under duress, kidnapped migrants can provide cartel kidnappers with information about their family members in the US who hopefully can round up enough cash to ensure their release. Often enough, migrants can’t come up with the ransom and are executed on the spot, their bodies buried in mass graves along some deserted stretch of a Mexican road, or left to bake in the desert sun.

Even if these migrants arrive safely in the US, this doesn’t mean they’re in the clear. Chances are they left some family members behind in Mexico. They may find work, and save enough money to start living a decent life and send some money back home. Then a year or two later, they may be the ones on the receiving end of that dreaded phone call.

No matter where in the US you live, chances are there’s at least a small Mexican community there, or in the city closest to you. It’s likely you cross paths with someone from Mexico on a regular basis—at a restaurant, a hotel, the supermarket, or any number of stores and businesses. The next time you talk to someone from Mexico, ask him or her what part of the country he or she is from (and commit it to memory so you can do a Google News search on it when you get home). Next, ask if he or she still has family there; the answer will almost always be yes.

Finally, ask if any of them have been affected by the ongoing violence. Again, the answer will almost always be yes. A friend or relative who has been kidnapped, threatened, forced to go into the drug trade, received threatening phone calls, witnessed a murder or shootout…be prepared. The answer may surprise you. As Americans, we need to understand that Mexico is not fighting this war alone. We are inextricably tied to Mexico’s economy, its drug war, and its people. Thus, it’s not just Mexico’s drug war; it’s our war, too.

Spare Some “Fast and Furious” Anger for Mexican Cartels

What if it wasn’t a “Fast and Furious” gun that was used to kill US Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry near Rio Rico, Arizona that fateful day in December 2010?

It’s the question no one is asking, and the concept that everyone is ignoring. In the meantime, members of Congress, federal and local law enforcement, pro-gun and anti-ATF activists, and much of the American public is focused on skewering the ATF and Department of Justice—in many cases, rightfully so—for a botched operation designed to identify Mexican arms smugglers.

Operation Fast and Furious was initiated by the ATF in mid-2009 as a sort of sting operation. It was designed as an attempt to identify the people at the highest levels of Mexican weapons smuggling organizations by knowingly allowing their hired hands to buy guns in the US, then smuggle them into Mexico. The ATF intended to track these guns to their final destinations and hopefully make some arrests.

But many things went horribly wrong. The ATF started to lose track of hundreds of guns they allowed law-abiding gun shops to sell. Fast and Furious guns started showing up at crime scenes across Mexico, and were also being seized in the US. What really brought the operation into the public eye was the fact that two Fast and Furious guns were found at the scene where Agent Terry was killed.

However, the tiny—and crucial—fact that all these people fail to remember is that the gun that was actually used to kill Agent Terry was never found, and as such, no one knows if that gun was part of the Fast and Furious program, or if it came from a different gun shop in the US that was never part of the program, or if it came from a non-US source altogether.

When Mexican cartels want to purchase weapons in the US, they hire US citizens with clean records and no criminal history—called straw men—to buy those guns for them. They go to gun stores, pawn shops, and gun shows with a cartel laundry list and buy these guns legally, more or less. They only thing they do wrong is lie on an ATF form where it asks if the guns they’re purchasing are for personal use; obviously, they’re not. Once they have the guns in hand, they pass them off to a middle man, and their part in the deal is done.

This was the critical part in the Fast and Furious operation that is coming under fire. The vast majority of American gun sellers will immediately call the ATF when they detect a suspicious transaction by a possible straw buyer. Under Fast and Furious, for at least a year the ATF directed these gun sellers to allow the transactions to take place—called letting the guns “walk”—and often with much protest by the seller.

After the guns are handed off, the middleman distributed the guns to multiple couriers, who then spread out along the various ports of entry on our southwest border with Mexico. Since Mexican authorities don’t inspect inbound traffic and our Customs and Border Protection agents are charged with inspecting only ten percent of outbound traffic, the couriers’ odds of success in smuggling the guns into Mexico is very high.

Once the guns arrive at their final destinations in Mexico, they’re usually stored at stash houses or warehouses for later use by cartel assassins or smugglers. This is another crucial point to understand: it’s highly likely that Fast and Furious guns were mixed in with non-Fast and Furious guns in various storage locations across Mexico. When the smugglers in the group that confronted Agent Terry and his partners picked (or were provided) the guns they had with them that December day, they received them randomly from probably a large selection of mixed firearms.

In other words, had Fast and Furious never existed, those bandits still would have had guns that day, and they still would have killed Agent Terry.

It’s easy to suggest that Fast and Furious was directly responsible for his murder, and to indict all of ATF and the Department of Justice for it. We’re a nation that holds people accountable for their negligent actions, and people want to be able to point the finger at someone identifiable for his tragic death. The ATF and many in the DOJ certainly engaged in abysmally poor decision-making, and there’s no doubt that high-level heads will - and should - roll. Despite being well intentioned, Fast and Furious was poorly conceived and should have been halted long ago.

But the real murderer of Agent Terry is a Mexican smuggler. He will likely never be identified, and the gun he used to kill Terry will likely never be found and traced. This fact is unacceptable to many because people in the accountability business hate not having an answer, or a real person to point their fingers at. The people ultimately associated with Fast and Furious will hopefully be held accountable for their negligence.

But Congress and our law enforcement agencies absolutely cannot lose sight of the fact that we are fighting a war with Mexico against savage cartels who will stop at nothing—including the murder of American agents—to continue raking in billions of dollars in drug profits. They’re the real enemy, and some anger and energy needs to be spared so Congress and US law enforcement agencies can truly focus on stopping them.

 

"Are American Drug War Bloggers And Tweeters In Danger?"

Here is an excerpt from my latest article for Homeland Security Today's Correspondents Watch:

"Citizens of Nuevo Laredo, Mexico were stunned to see two beheaded and disemboweled corpses hanging from a highway overpass in early September. It wasn’t because they’d never been exposed to this level of brutality by Mexican transnational criminal organizations (TCOs), but rather it was because of the message that was left with the bodies signed by Los Zetas. The note implied the two unidentified males were savagely killed for using social media against them. Later that month, the beheaded body of Elizabeth Macias, an employee of a Mexican news organization, was found in the same location. And on November 10, Mexican police found a fourth body in a wealthy Nuevo Laredo neighborhood with a note that read: “This happened to me for not understanding that I shouldn't report on the social networks.” While US media have reported these incidents and the impact they have had on social media users in Mexico, few have examined how drug war bloggers and tweeters in the United States feel about this new TCO tactic. As it turns out, their level of concern varies."

To read the full article on HSToday.us, please CLICK HERE!

"Mexican TCO Members Quietly Living Among Us - For Now."

Here's an excerpt from my latest article for Homeland Security Today's "Correspondents' Watch":

"Brownsville, Texas is what most people would call a working-class town. It has an industrial feel and there are areas of the community that have seen better days. One of the city’s mainstays is its large port and its connection via three international bridges to Matamoros in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas. Driving around town, you find plenty of taquerias along with typical chain restaurants, warehouses, car dealerships, schools and other places typical for a south Texas town or Gulf Coast port city. But there is something else that makes Brownsville - as well as the neighboring cities of Harlingen and McAllen - different from the average, small port community. And that is it is located a few hundred yards from the US-Mexico border and one of the most violent areas in Mexico. As a result, many members of Mexico’s transnational criminal organizations (TCOs) spend a considerable amount of time in south Texas. Some even own homes, property and small businesses here... Several recent incidents have brought to light the fact that TCO members—some very high-ranking and some violent—are living among us in the United States, and definitely in much higher numbers along the southwest border."

To read the full article on HSToday.com, please CLICK HERE!

"Texas sheriff: Drug war violence spilling over."

Here is an excerpt from this Associated Press story, published in The Houston Chronicle:

"A shooting that injured a sheriff's deputy was the first indisputable case of spillover violence from the Mexican drug wars in Hidalgo County, the local sheriff said Monday. Sheriff Lupe Trevino, who previously said there was no direct spillover violence in the Lower Rio Grande Valley, said the Sunday shootout erupted while one of his deputies investigated a reported kidnapping and drug deal. 'I have to say that with this particular incident, the way the witnesses and the information that we have gotten particularly in the federal system, this is the first recorded spillover violence event that we have experienced — and unfortunately got one of our deputies shot,' Trevino said. One suspect was killed and two were wounded. In all, six people were taken into custody, including the alleged kidnapping victim, and are awaiting charges, the sheriff said... Trevino said the reported kidnapping was a bid to recover marijuana stolen when the Gulf cartel's reputed second-in-command, Samuel Flores Borrego, was killed in September...'Now, there are more cartel members living in Texas, in the Valley, in the United States. I'll guarantee you there's a ton of them,' he said." Link to Full Story

Analysis: That something like this has happened along the Texas-Mexico border should come as a surprise to no one. But this is what I really don't understand. Why isn't this story getting more national attention? I did a search of news stories on this particular incident, and just about everything was local in the RGV or Texas - KRGV, KGBT, The Monitor, The Houston Chronicle, etc. Although I will say, The Boston Herald did print a story on it. But why aren't the "big guys" like CNN, FOX News, and MSNBC splattering this report all over the screen?

This really shouldn't surprise me too much, either. Just last year, the first drug war-related beheading occurred in the US, specifically in Chandler, Arizona. Yep, a beheading on US soil in an apartment complex. When I tell people about that story, they look at me in awe, as if to say, why haven't I heard about this before? Then there are the five men who were electrocuted, tortured, and had their throats slit in a northern Alabama safe house in 2009. Again, only local coverage about that.

But this story in Hidalgo County is different. Most reports about possible spillover violence almost always involve bad guys killing bad guys - like the Gulf cartel members who got into a firefight on a McAllen highway a couple of weeks ago. Perhaps that's why people are disinterested; criminals killing criminals makes the work easier for law enforcement, right? But these were TCO members who shot and severely wounded an American law enforcement officer on US soil. The activities they were engaged in before the confrontation were directly related to the drug war in Mexico. Why is it that only news outlets in Texas are noticing?

The cynic in me tells me that these types of incidents are very bad PR for DHS. Everyone along the border - and particularly in south Texas - knows that cartel members are everywhere down there, but generally keep to themselves. But many border residents also knew it was a matter of time before something like this happened. This is the main reason for the subtitle of my book: The Coming Invasion of Mexico's Drug Wars. The TCOs are getting squeezed tighter and tighter by authorities on both sides of the border. However, they still need to keep the drug profits coming in. That means taking on more risk, i.e. engaging with US law enforcement and engaging in violent behavior in public on US soil.

This is not the first time that TCO members or armed drug smugglers have fired shots at US law enforcement (e.g. USBP Agent Brian Terry), and it certainly won't be the last. My question is, how many of these incidents have to happen before the US government starts rethinking its statement that the border is the safest it's ever been? And what's it going to take to move border security up the totem pole of national concerns? Hopefully, not another injured sheriff's deputy.