Here is an excerpt from Ben Conery's article in The Washington Times:
"Angel Haro-Perez, the Atlanta head of the Gulf Cartel, is typical of cartel members and associates working in the U.S.: They keep a low profile, avoid violence and work quietly to traffic tons of drugs — cocaine, heroin, marijuana and methamphetamine — into the U.S. while smuggling billions of dollars back across the border. And they do it while remaining virtually invisible to the community and general public... Just northeast of Atlanta, Gwinnett County,
where Mr. Haro-Perez was arrested, has become a ground zero of sorts for Mexican drug cartels, according to authorities. The county's population has more than doubled since 1990, and authorities say the Hispanic, particularly Mexican, population has exploded with a mixture of both legal and illegal immigrants. According to U.S. Census data, Hispanics made up less than 2.5 percent of Gwinnett County's population in 1990, a number that increased to 11 percent in 2000 and was up to 16 percent by 2007. 'We emphasize that the vast majority of those people have nothing to do with drug dealing, but what they do is they allow the Mexican cartels, almost all of whose operatives are Mexican, to hide in plain sight,' [U.S. Attorney David] Nahmias said. Fifteen years ago, he said, four young Hispanic men coming in and out of a house at all hours of the night might make neighbors suspicious. Now they could be painters or construction workers, and there could be 10 other households like theirs on a street." Link to Full Article
Analysis: Although this article focuses on Atlanta - and rightfully so, as it's a major drug distribution hub - the same concerns can be applied to dozens, if not hundreds, of metropolitan areas AND small towns across the US. Migration patterns can't be disputed, and it is creating environments in more and more places where DTO members and their associates - namely, Hispanic gang members - can blend in easily. The key to their success has been the avoidance of trappings which DTO members in Mexico usually enjoy: tricked-out and armored vehicles, jewelry, bodyguards, expensive clothes, etc. DTO members in the US appear to be all business and no play, and that mindset has benefitted them greatly.
Despite their subtlety in business matters on US soil, Mexican DTOs have brought some of the violence of their work deeper into US territory than most people suspect. As the article mentions, DTO-related murders and kidnappings have occurred in places like Phoenix, Atlanta, and even small towns in Alabama. A raid on a gang in Omaha, Nebraska recently uncovered their plan to sell high-powered military-grade guns to Mexican DTOs. The article also mentions that violence levels associated with DTO activity in the US remains low, and DTO members seem to be content to just conduct their business quietly. That's all well and good, but I felt not enough focus was placed on the challenges being placed on state and local law enforcement by the presence of these distributors in their cities. There is some mention of wiretaps and surveillance being conducted, but not much more regarding to effort to detect these networks and dismantle them. If I were a reader living in a city with a sizeable Hispanic population (which I happen to be), I'd wonder what my Sheriff and local cops were doing to find out if this sort of thing was happening in my area, and how to prevent it from getting here (or getting worse).
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