7. The United States has repeatedly called for Mexico to end the traditional impunity for high level officials. The author wishes to thank Brandon Paeper, Brittawni Olson, Ann Marie Lambert, Denise Olson and Pat O'Day for their help, assistance and insight. In September 1977, DEA agents at JFK Airport Viejito', accused of being one of the leading producers of methamphetamine in Seventy percent of the citizenry live in urban areas. These groups have accumulated more than $5.3 billion in the past eight years, primarily through the drug trade ($2.3 billion), but also via kidnaping ($1.8 billion) and extortion ($1.2 billion) (Criminal Organizations, May 1999). 15. Amezcua Contreras was released from a Guadalajara Prison on May 19, 1999 after a judge ruled that the state was trying him under a new drug-laundering law that did not exist at the time of Contreras' alleged offense. 34-36. Cut Colombia out of the picture with respect to the cocaine trade by dealing directly with Peruvian and Bolivian suppliers. The Mexican cartels have emerged as formidable enemies and have the potential of seriously challenging the very sovereignty of the Mexican state. Everyone had to do it" (AFP, 5/30/99). We don't have a clear idea of what that means." The family head gives to the poor, plays the role of loving community godfather at many funerals and weddings, builds water and sewer systems, puts in street lights, builds hospitals. AFP, "Mexico's reviled ex-president Salinas back from exile," 10/3/00, internet. This discovery led to an investigation which determined that between June 1993 and December 1994 some 170 tons of ephedrine had been shipped to Mexico. The next phase will see transnational organized crime entities emerge as the de-facto sovereign of significance in the world. makes a final decision and passes the matter on to Congress before March 1. The role of the printed press in contemporary Mexico is also undergoing a significant shift. AFP, "190 Mexican died while trying to cross into US this year," 9/9/99, internet. We are still in the process of carrying out this operation. In August These meetings were arranged by the Honduran drug trafficker, Matta Ballesteros. When asked by Mexican officials to put a stop to this illegal arms trade, American officials have indicated that the demand for the weapons is on the Mexican end, so they, the Mexicans, should stop it - an interesting bit of international diplomatic hypocrisy that the United States can engage in, because at present it has the biggest stick. As would be expected, Colombia's political scene is quite different from that of Mexico. The l999 certification was approved in a far less visible fashion than in either 1998 or 1997 (the Senate vote in 1998 was close, however - 54 to 45, UPI, 3/26/98; see also Reuters, 2/26/98), though the matter did draw the ire of political leaders on both sides of the Rio Grande (AFP, 2/26/98; Reuters, 2/4/98). opium poppy plants, processed and packaged heroin in Mexico, and transported it Colonel," Newsweek, August 16, 1999, p. 37. (AFP, 8/19/00). Reuters, "Mexico indians reject out-of-date aid in Chiapas," 1/20/98, internet. 6. With smuggling networks in place, the 1970s saw the cartels branch out on their own and begin to smuggle the high demand drug, marijuana, into the United States. Fuentes was very tight with Jorge Hank, Jr. Jorge Hank, Sr. is one of the most powerful men in the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), the Mexican national party. (Reuters, 4/17/97) The result of the new immigration law has been a marked increase in the people smuggling trade. In a damning suicide note left by his side in September of 1999, Jose's brother, Mario Massieu, implicated President Zedillo in Jose's murder, a matter that will surely disrupt an already uneasy political situation in Mexico (AFP, 9/17/99). performed the chemical processes for the production of methamphetamine, whose Finally, in early 1998, Mexican and American officials began working out the first ever bi-national drug control strategy (Reuters, 2/6/98). Mexican officials recently arrested 51 undocumented Chinese who were hidden in secret compartments of trucks headed for the United States (AFP, 2/27/98). Commenting on the move to the meth market, Constantine indicated: "The shiftwas a brilliant business decision by these organizations. The initial Alliance Against Drugs strategy outlined 16 goals, one of which is the establishment of three cooperative Border Task Forces in unspecified locations. THE MEXICAN POLITICAL SCENE: AN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE As has been noted, Mexico has been governed by one political party, the PRI (Partido Revolucionario Institucional or Institutional Revolutionary Party), for 70 years. The Steigenberger Parkhotel at Konigsallee 1a, known in short as the KO, is one of the best hotels in Dusseldorf. In September of 2000, deputy commerce secretary Raul Ramos was found dead in a rural area outside Mexico City. Assured of winning the election after being "fingered" by then President Carlos Salinas, Colosio made the error of espousing the need to move toward democracy and suggesting a need to help the poor. Some are artistic photos and others are simply panoramic photos taken by amateurs and friends who simply like Los Herrera.See more photos . Customs officials at the Dallas/Fort Worth Airport found 3.5 tons of ephedrine on a plane from Switzerland bound for Mexico. Some ten years ago, a special Mexican border police force, Grupo Beta, was created. Pequeo, the amount of the drug to be introduced would reach more than two At least two American agents, while assigned to Operation Casablanca, undertook investigative actions while on Mexican soil without the Mexican government's approval. Mexico appeared to be poised to make a long-term run at improving their economy. Without political corruption, organized crime loses its protection. This deal was a major turning point in the fortunes of the Mexican cartels. "What is surprising," he writes, "is the open and singularly aggressive demeanor of the Mexican soldiers [who are] on American soil." Ramos, an active PRI player, was commonly acknowledged to have been involved for many years in a multi-national auto-theft ring with underworld figures from Argentina and Colombia. This information included the identities of undercover agents and every bit of information about the United States-Mexican intelligence unit used to track major cartel persons. AFP, "Mexico's Fox calls for US-Canadian fund to close 'development gap'," 8/19/00, internet. Members of this syndicate are generally all tied by blood and/or marriage, and as a result, the group has been almost impossible to infiltrate. AFP, "Latin American leaders slam U.S. assessment on drug fighting efforts," 2/27/98, internet. American aid continues to flow into the government coffers, external investment is up, and the drug revenues are as high as ever. In Los Herrera there is a very characteristic age structure of the population, which you can see in the following population pyramid, with data from 2005. This highlights the ability of these powerful cartels to recruit whoever they want. Herrera is considered to be one of the most important producers UPI, "Zedillo: Mexican economy won't worsen," 2/5/99, internet. In addition, in July of 2000, President Fox negotiated an agreement with the European Union to in essence tear down all trade barriers between these two trading partners by the year 2010 (Associated Press, 11/06/00). Migrant workers were at one time predominantly male; this is no longer the case. The answers to these and other questions that will yet emerge in our ever changing environment must await the passage of time and in the end will perhaps be answered accurately only in historical retrospect. A March 1997 New York Times article detailed the Fuentes connection with governors of at least two Mexican states - Morelos and Sonora (Reuters, 2/16/97). The Amezcua brothers have been buying ephedrine in every major producing country in the world including China, India, Germany and the Czech Republic. Resendiz, Rosalva, "International auto theft: An exploratory research of organization and organized crime on the U.S./Mexican Border," Criminal Organizations, Vol 12 (1/2), 1998. He would bypass Colombia because of the unstructured and unstable cartels in Colombia at the time. Congressmen John Mica from Florida recently stated, "I will work to de-certify Mexico this year because the corruption is endemic from the lowest levels to the highest levels in that country and they still fail to cooperate to the degree I believe is necessary" (Reuters, 2/6/98). While the internal debates continue in this country as to the appropriateness of the certification process, the United States continues to hold this stick of economic sanctions over the collective heads of its trading partners. AFP, "Mexican economic growth exceeds forecast: finance minister," 2/11/99, internet. Usually meth by-products are dumped near the facility. The shear amount of money involved makes it possible to undermine virtually all law enforcement efforts in such a poor country. Former Gulf Cartel king-pin Garcia-Abrego, for example, even publically noted the audacity of the Salinas administration coming after him after he arranged with Raul Salinas to have two anti-Salinas candidates killed. Nowhere was corruption been more blatant than in the administration of former Mexican President Carlos Salinas, generally recognized as Mexico's favorite person to deride (AFP, 6/14/99). How will the cartels respond to the two party/multiple party system, if indeed this arrangement continues to establish itself on the Mexican political terrain. The current Mexican model of federal executive leadership is the outgrowth of policies put in place by President Calles in response to two decades of extreme unrest. Reuters, "Mexican drug kingpin Abrego's empire," 1996, internet. Mexican The church was the near omnipotent sovereign at the dawn of the present millennium, and ruled and reigned with virtually unchallenged power for several hundred years. Lucky for Enrquez Herrera, a generous benefactor was able to step in and lend him the money he needed to complete the project. President Fox is aggressively pushing the U.S. to end its drug certification program, publicly stressing that the drug problem will not be resolved until America addresses its own corruption problem; "as long as the United States does not end corruption, efforts to curb the illegal drug trade will not be successful"(AFP, 8/19/00). Despite an abundance of evidence, no illegal or unethical activity was found to be present by an investigative panel of Mexican authorities. In response to the issue of American corruption, he recently responded, "I ask myself how tons and tons of drugs enter the United States without anyone noticing and how consumption grows without anybody stopping it." Foolishly, Abrego placed $1.3 billion into an American bank checking account, which only served to bring him to the immediate attention of American law enforcement officials. In 1994 sheriffs of two border counties were jailed along with a county clerk and a county judge. But until 2009, the stolen car market will remain a very lucrative venue for the cartels. In turn, parliaments, then the people, and today, I would suggest, multi-national corporations have taken their turn as the sovereigns of primary power. President Zedillo himself has even admitted taking money from Peniche, but the details are not clear (AFP, 5/30/99). in the 90's in the United States and after obtaining bail fled the country, All this information may have been passed on to the cartels. Juarez controlled durango until chapo. 9. Malherve is considered by the U.S. DEA to be the second most powerful drug trafficker in Mexico. As the Panama Canal changes ownership in the coming months, American military presence and the accompanying airborne surveillance efforts in Central America will become diminished. There it was either sold locally or distributed to other U.S. cities. Only crap, Buela I read the story of Jaime Herrera-Nevares back in 2000, is this guy related to them? Robinson, Linda, "Mexican mayhem," U.S. News and World Report, July 12, 1999, p. 39. The United States attempted to legislate itself out of the problem a decade ago. They face federal corruption charges for allowing drugs to cross the border. Mexican officials certainly engage in the selective targeting activity out of necessity - to offer up an occasional sacrificial lamb to please the American certification gods. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas, however, who called for a moratorium on the certification process to give time for the newly elected presidents of both countries to consider new proposals (AFP, 9/22/00). AFP, "Mexican government rejects rebel proposal for peace," 3/4/98, internet. Furthermore, immediately following Labastida's resignation as Interior Secretary (which enabled him to run in the PRI's November 1999 primary election), several trade unions and other groups linked to the PRI party publicly declared their support for him. In September of 1994, PRI heir-apparent Jose Francisco Massieu was assassinated. 19, launched in 1979, targeted the Herrera family trafficking organization and GreenLeaders Bronze level. President Clinton acknowledged this fact recently, stating, "Let's be frank here we have five percent of the world's population, and we consume about half the drugs" (Reuters, 1997)/(16). The collapse happened almost overnight. The Mexican people, as well as the Mexican government, corporate and civic institutions all operate with a deeply imbedded paternalistic-aristocratic political culture that pre-dates the Spanish. the mid-1980s, the family's gross income had reached approximately $200 million The bells and whistles were brought out, Congressional Committees examined the issues, and numerous public relations statements were released by the Clinton Administration. Oscar Malherve emerged as the next leader of this cartel, and due to his Juarez Cartel connections, seemed poised to move the Gulf Cartel back into a position of prominence, but he was arrested in 1997 and remains behind bars as of this writing. CERTIFICATION One of the external political problems facing the Mexican government is that the United States conducts an annual evaluation of some 30 of its trading partners' drug fighting efforts. They With the peso devaluation came inflation, which destroyed the dreams of what was becoming a relatively large and stable Mexican middle class. United States officials uncovered the magnitude of the meth trade in 1994 simply by chance. Of the six major politicians who initially indicated their intention to run for the office in 2000, the former Interior Secretary Francisco Labastida was widely seen as President Zedillo's favorite. The activity is ongoing. the Herrera organization imported 746 pounds of pure heroin into the United During personal visits with President Clinton, Al Gore and George W. Bush in August of 2000, he argued for the complete opening of the U.S./Mexican border within the next 10 to 30 years, and proposed an amendment to NAFTA which would allow for a free labor flow between Mexico, the U.S. and Canada. Reuters, "Clinton, Zedillo try to ease strain," 5/7/97, internet. There was some thought at the time that he may have been purposefully killed on the operating table, but it now appears that he simply died due to surgical complications. The average annual temperature is 24C and average annual precipitation is 500 mm. You are the ones who consume all the drugs!" He has returned several occasions since, including a visit in October of 2000 (AFP, 10/3/00). it isn't hard to make meth. In the early 1990s, United States anti-drug operations kicked in and began to focus on the Colombian-Caribbean drug smuggling connections. Perhaps the best known Mexican newspaper, Excelsior, long sold itself to the government in exchange for price supports, massive tax breaks, and outright payments from governments leaders. 4. If victorious in this effort, he will surely root out a significant measure of the institutional corruption that has both hampered Mexico's socio-economic development and collaterally permitted its' organized crime syndicates to prosper for half a century. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one. Journalist John Anderson states, "No law, no special task forces, no number of helicopters and chase planes can compare to the impact that one strategic indictment would have, as every cabinet member, general, and police commander would suddenly be made to understand that impunity will no longer be tolerated" (Reding, 1995). "Colombia: Rebels Earn Billions from Crime," Criminal Organizations, May 1999, p. 27. It was shortly after the death of Arqui, that a regional jefe named Gerardo Soberanes Ortiz, alias El G1, began to rise within the ranks of los Cabreras. It could be argued however, that these were basically token seats, for the PRI maintained its iron hold on the nation's political scene. There will certainly not be any abrupt divorce decree nor a sudden wholesale embrace of grassroots democracy. As would later be revealed, Carrillo Fuentes even had Mexico's law enforcement drug czar, Gutierrez Rebollo, in his pocket. With the kindlier and gentler attitude in place, the drug lords began to return their "coca-bucks" to the Mexican economy. Instead of merely dumping the cocaine in warehouses just across the border, the Mexican cartels became so powerful that they could guarantee delivery anywhere inside the United States. Nearly all of the arrests took place on foreign soil in an attempt to counter the long legal battles that take place when illegals are arrested having once arrived in the United States (Benjamin, 2000). It appears as if he may have been tied with Raul Salinas and Ruiz Massieu (former Deputy Attorney General) in facilitating the flow of drugs and cash into and out of the country (AFP, 3/28/98). In May of 1998, numerous Mexican bankers were arrested by U.S. officials during Operation Casablanca, a law enforcement effort involving over 200 undercover U.S. Customs agents (Farah, 1998). Atrocities went un-reported, as did unfavorable economic news. A far more likely scenario is that the Hank family may well have aligned themselves with The Federation, bringing a significant amount of resources and connections to an already extremely powerful entity. This allows the Mexican government to continue to play the plausible deniability game, and to placate the United States political leadership for a season. The same way Ovidio got caught, did ovidio ratted on him? AFP, "Conspiracy theories abound after mysterious death of Mexican official," 9/9/00, internet. In early 1998, they combined forces with the strong central Mexican group, the Sonora Cartel run by the Caro Quintero family of Guadalajara, and formed a new organization they call, "The Federation" (AFP, 2/16/98). Recent reports out of Colombia suggest a plan to re-establish control of the supply lines and to subsequently divide the supply of drugs between Mexico and Puerto Rico, thus forcing the Puerto Rican and Mexican cartels to compete with each other in a classic divide and conquer scheme, leaving the Colombians in a position of dominance. Whether it be for the elections, opportunity or a shift in Mexico's government, as long as these guys continue to fall, it makes no difference. Nope just a typical Federal Government clean up to gain points for upcoming elections . Later in August of 1996, 737 members of the Federal Judicial Police force from all levels were fired on suspicion of corruption (Reuters, 8/16/96). In August of 1996, the President of American Sanyo Video Corporation was kidnapped and released after a $2 million ransom was paid. Good job AMLO. AFP, "U.S. issues annual anti-drug ruling," 12/13/97, internet. 4. Given the obvious stature of the military within the political culture of Mexico (or of any nation for that matter) and the deeply entrenched/tap root nature of its involvement in the drug trade, one could easily argue that they are perhaps the most dangerous, the most insipidus, and surely destined to be the most enduring of all the Mexican drug cartels. In the face of this pending crisis, Mexico will soon receive a $23.7 billion financial aid package from the IMF, the World Bank, the U.S. Eximbank, the Inter-American Development Bank, the U.S. Federal Reserve and the Central Bank of Canada.
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