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Date: April 30, 2024 Tue
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Results for drug cartels
88 results foundAuthor: Caldwell-Aden, Laura Title: Preventing First-Time DWI Offenses: First-Time Offenders in CAlifornia, New York, and Florida: An Analysis of Past Criminality and Associated Criminal Justice Interventions Summary: Research suggests that there are far more people driving impaired than arrested each year. Additional data supports that a person arrested for the first time for driving under the influence (DUI) or driving while impaired (DWI) may have driven many times impaired before getting caught. This report details a study that determined if there were common prior offenses among first-time DWI offenders, and to identify strategies that are used to address the identified offenses to determine if there are potential opportunities to expand those efforts to prevent impaired driving. Details: Seabrook, MD: 1 Source Consulting/Marvyn Consulting, 2009. 140p. Source: Sponsoring Agency: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Year: 2009 Country: United States URL: Shelf Number: 118297 Keywords: Assault WeaponsDriving Under the Influence (DUI)Driving While Intoxicated (DWI)Drug CartelsDrunk DrivingGun Violence (Mexico)Homicides |
Author: Dudley, Steven S. Title: Drug Trafficking Organizations in Central America: Transportistas, Mexican Cartels and Maras Summary: This chapter is about drug trafficking organizations (DTO) operating in Central America. It is broken down by theme rather than by country. It provides a brief history of DTO activity in the region; descriptions of who operates the DTOs, both locally and internationally, and their modus operandi; the use of street gangs in DTO activities; DTO penetration in government and security forces; local, regional and international efforts and challenges as they try and combat DTOs. The chapter is centered on the three countries where the problem of DTOs appears to be the most acute: Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras. Details: Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Mexico Institute; San Diego, CA: University of San Diego, Trans-Border Institute, 2010. 30p. Source: Internet Resource: Working Paper Serieson U.S.-Mexico Security Collaboration: Accessed August 30, 2010 at: http://wilsoncenter.org/topics/pubs/Drug%20Trafficking%20Organizations%20in%20Central%20America.%20Dudley.pdf Year: 2010 Country: Central America URL: http://wilsoncenter.org/topics/pubs/Drug%20Trafficking%20Organizations%20in%20Central%20America.%20Dudley.pdf Shelf Number: 119707 Keywords: Drug CartelsDrug TraffickingOrganized CrimeStreet Gangs |
Author: Camp, Roderic Ai Title: Armed Forces and Drugs: Public Perceptions and Institutional Challenges Summary: This essay proposes to briefly describe and analyze the evolution of the Army and Navy’s role in drug interdiction, focusing on the patterns that have emerged since 1995, when the Army accepted responsibility for that task without any internal opposition. This paper argues that Mexican national security priorities have shifted significantly, focusing on domestic security issues, specifically drug-related criminal activity and violence. In response to the government’s emphasis on drug-related crime, civil authorities have relied increasingly on the armed forces to carry out an aggressive anti-drug mission. The increased role of the military in carrying out these assignments has produced significant changes within the Mexican Navy and the Army, and in their relationship with the American armed forces. Citizen views of the Mexican armed forces as an institution, its performance of the anti-drug mission, and its reactions to increased levels of personal insecurity, have altered Mexican perceptions of national sovereignty and the United States’ role in their country. Finally, the role of the Catholic Church as an increasingly influential actor in government attempts to curb the drug cartels, as well as the source of potential conflict with the armed forces over growing numbers of human rights abuses, are essential to understanding the consequences of the military’s anti-drug mission. Details: Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Mexico Institute: San Diego: University of San Diego, Trans-Border Institute, 2010. 33p. Source: Internet Resource: Working Paper Series on U.S.-Mexico Security Collaboration: Accessed September 1, 2010 at: http://wilsoncenter.org/topics/pubs/Armed%20Forces%20and%20Drugs.%20Camp.pdf Year: 2010 Country: Mexico URL: http://wilsoncenter.org/topics/pubs/Armed%20Forces%20and%20Drugs.%20Camp.pdf Shelf Number: 119716 Keywords: Armed ForcesDrug CartelsDrug EnforcementDrug TraffickingDrug Trafficking Control |
Author: Mayors Against Illegal Guns Title: Issue Brief: The Movement of Illegal Guns Across the U.S.-Mexico Border Summary: In recent years, the escalating drug cartel violence in Mexico has claimed tens of thousands of lives, fueled in part by thousands of guns illegally trafficked from the United States. In fact, 90% of guns recovered and traced from Mexican crime scenes originated from gun dealers in the United States. This report relies primarily on previously unreleased trace data provided by Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (“ATF”) to Mayors Against Illegal Guns to describe which states are the predominant suppliers of those guns recovered and traced in Mexico. This new data shows that four in ten of the U.S. guns recovered in Mexico between 2006 and 2009 were originally sold by gun dealers in Texas. The three other states that share a border with Mexico – Arizona, California, and New Mexico – were the source for another one-third of the U.S. guns. To better understand the flow of guns into Mexico, this report also studies the rate at which states supply Mexican crime guns by controlling for population. When using this control, gun dealers in Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas each supply crime guns to Mexico at rates at least 169% greater than any other state and at a rate more than three times as high as the fourth border state, California. In addition to proximity to the border, relatively lax gun laws in Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas may contribute to that disparity. Additionally, the time between the original sale of guns at U.S. gun dealers and the recovery of those guns at Mexican crime scenes is decreasing – a sign of ever more sophisticated gun trafficking. Details: (S.l.): Mayors Against Illegal Guns, 2010. 5p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed October 8, 2010 at: http://www.mayorsagainstillegalguns.org/downloads/pdf/issue_brief_mexico_2010.pdf Year: 2010 Country: Mexico URL: http://www.mayorsagainstillegalguns.org/downloads/pdf/issue_brief_mexico_2010.pdf Shelf Number: 119893 Keywords: Drug CartelsGun ControlGun TraffickingGun ViolenceIllegal Guns |
Author: Killebrew, Bob Title: Crime Wars: Gangs, Cartels and U.S. National Security Summary: Criminal networks linking cartels and gangs are no longer simply a crime problem, but a threat that is metastasizing into a new form of widespread, networked criminal insurgency. The scale and violence of these networks threaten civil governments and civil societies in the Western Hemisphere and, increasingly, the United States as well. American policymakers have been slow to recognize the evolution of the drug cartels and gangs from purely law enforcement problems to the strategic threat they now pose. Drug trafficking is variously described solely in terms of a drug problem, a challenge to other countries or a problem for states along the United States' southern border. Drug trafficking groups are, in fact, a threat across all these categories – they are part of networks attacking the United States and other friendly countries on many fronts. Although the U.S. government is currently implementing measures to address the separate pieces of this problem – for example, deploying National Guard units to the border – it has yet to craft a truly comprehensive domestic and foreign strategy to confront the inter-related challenges of trafficking and violence reaching from the Andean Ridge to American streets. This report is the product of a yearlong study by the Center for a New American Security (CNAS). It seeks to explain the scale of organized crime in key countries in the Western Hemisphere and provide elements of such a strategy. We make these observations based on research and analysis of regional trends as well as conversations with government and law enforcement officials, in the United States and abroad, on the front lines of this fight. The first section presents the geography of crime in Latin America, outlining how the criminal networks in Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela and other countries in between pose a common problem for the region and the United States. While the circumstances and potential futures of each country differ, they are linked. The following section shows how the same networks are also active and growing within the United States, posing the need for domestic as well as foreign action. The last section of this study recommends principles to guide a national strategy against cartels and gangs. Finally, to make the point that illegal drug trafficking is not the cartels’ only business, the appendix summarizes the major kinds of illicit commerce that support organized criminal groups in this hemisphere. Details: Washington, DC: Center for a New American Security, 2010. 77p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed October 20, 2010 at: http://www.cnas.org/files/documents/publications/CNAS_CrimeWars_KillebrewBernal.pdf Year: 2010 Country: United States URL: http://www.cnas.org/files/documents/publications/CNAS_CrimeWars_KillebrewBernal.pdf Shelf Number: 119971 Keywords: Criminal NetworksDrug CartelsDrug TraffickingOrganized Crime |
Author: Grayson, George W. Title: La Familia Drug Cartel: Implications for U.S.-Mexican Security Summary: La Familia Michoacana burst onto the national stage on September 6, 2006, when ruffians crashed into the seedy Sol y Sombra nightclub in Uruapan, Michoacán, and fired shots into the air. They screamed at the revelers to lie down, ripped open a plastic bag, and lobbed five human heads onto the beer-stained black and white dance floor. The day before these macabre pyrotechnics, the killers seized their prey from a mechanic’s shop and hacked off their heads with bowie knives while the men writhed in pain. “You don’t do something like that unless you want to send a big message,” said a U.S. law-enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity about an act of human depravity that would “cast a pall over the darkest nooks of hell.” The desperados left behind a note hailing their act as “divine justice,” adding that: "The Family doesn't kill for money; it doesn't kill women; it doesn't kill innocent people; only those who deserve to die, die. Everyone should know . . . this is divine justice.” While claiming to do the “Lord’s work,” the ruthless leaders of this syndicate have emerged as the dominant exporter of methamphetamines to the United States, even as they control scores of municipalities in Michoacán and neighboring states. Details: Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army War College, Strategic Studies Institute, 2010. 111p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed December 16, 2010 at: http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pubs/display.cfm?pubID=1033 Year: 2010 Country: Mexico URL: http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pubs/display.cfm?pubID=1033 Shelf Number: 120529 Keywords: Drug CartelsDrug Trafficking (Mexico)Violence |
Author: Killebrew, Bob Title: Security Through Partnership: Fighting Transnational Cartels in the Western Hemisphere Summary: The most dangerous threat to the United States and its allies in the Western Hemisphere is the growth of powerful transnational criminal organizations that threaten law, order and governance in Mexico and the seven states of Central America. Over 35,000 Mexicans have died in drug-related violence since 2006 when Mexican President Felipe Calderón began to crack down on the cartels; in 2010 more than 3,100 have died in Ciudad Juarez alone. In neighboring Guatemala, the government declared an official “state of siege” along its northern border with Mexico to permit its military to fight the los Zetas cartel. Unfortunately, efforts to counter cartels and drug trafficking have largely failed thus far. Worsening violence and instability in the region threaten U.S. national security interests and demand a stronger response. To address this threat, the United States and its partners in the region should look to Colombia for guidance and assistance. Colombia has fought similar threats with some success and is emerging from three decades of crisis fueled by drug trafficking organizations and violent cartels. While Colombia will face many challenges for some time to come, it is increasingly secure, democratic and able to help its neighbors. The United States and its partners throughout the Western Hemisphere stand the best chance of securing the region against the most dangerous cartels by attacking them together. A regional security framework such as the “Mesoamerican Security Corridor,” proposed by the U.S. Department of State, offers a new opportunity to link U.S. and Colombian assistance and counternarcotics programs in Mexico to address challenges in the Central American states to Mexico’s south. Such a regional security framework will be necessary to defeat the cartels and reinstitute the rule of law and justice. A key element of the framework should be greater synergies between major U.S. security assistance programs including the Mérida Initiative, Plan Colombia and nascent bilateral Colombian-Mexican cooperation. Details: Washington, DC: Center for a New American Security, 2011. 6p. Source: Internet Resource: Policy Brief: Accessed April 7, 2011 at: http://www.cnas.org/files/documents/publications/CNAS_Partnership_KillebrewIrvine.pdf Year: 2011 Country: International URL: http://www.cnas.org/files/documents/publications/CNAS_Partnership_KillebrewIrvine.pdf Shelf Number: 121268 Keywords: CartelsDrug CartelsDrug TraffickingOrganized CrimeTransnational Crime |
Author: Serrano-Berthet, Rodrigo Title: Crime and Violence in Central America: A Development Challenge Summary: Central America’s spiraling wave of crime and violence is threatening the region’s prosperity as countries face huge economic and human losses as a result of it. Aside from the pain and trauma inflicted upon victims, violence can cost the region up to 8 percent of its GDP when taking into account law enforcement, citizen security and health care costs. This is no small change for a region that in 2010 grew around 2 percent of GDP, while the rest of Latin America grew around 6 percent. To make matters worse, crime and violence also hampers economic growth, not just from the victims’ lost wages and labor, but by polluting the investment climate and diverting scarce government resources to strengthen law enforcement rather than promote economic activity, argues Crime and Violence in Central America: a Development challenge. But, in a redeeming twist, the study also suggests that a ten percent reduction of murder rates in the region’s most violent countries could boost annual economic growth by as much as a full one percent. Crime rates in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras are among the top five in Latin America. In the region’s other three countries — Costa Rica, Nicaragua and Panama — crime and violence levels are significantly lower, but a spike in recent years has raised serious concerns. Some perspective may help gauge the extent of the problem. While Central America's population is roughly the same size as Spain's, Spain only registered 336 homicides in 2006, in sharp contrast with Central America’s 14,257 homicides – an average of 40 per day. Drug trafficking and a decades-long culture of violence emerge as the main culprits in Central America’s crime predicament. Easy access to firearms and weak judicial institutions are also to blame for the region’s violent state of affairs, according to the report. Narco trafficking ranks as the top cause for the rising crime rates and violence levels in Central America, a reflection in part of the sheer volume of narcotics flows through the area –90 percent of US-bound drugs, according to the study. Inherent traits of drug cartel operations, such as turf wars and vendettas between rival gangs, seem to fuel the region’s murder rates. The complexity of this situation calls for a regional approach and greater emphasis on prevention, at the expense of interdiction, which has proven insufficient to diminish the traffickers’ capacity. Also, successful strategies require actions along multiple fronts, combining prevention and criminal justice reform. Details: Washington, DC: World Bank, 2011. 45p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed April 13, 2011 at: http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTLAC/Resources/FINAL_VOLUME_I_ENGLISH_CrimeAndViolence.pdf Year: 2011 Country: Central America URL: http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTLAC/Resources/FINAL_VOLUME_I_ENGLISH_CrimeAndViolence.pdf Shelf Number: 121323 Keywords: Drug CartelsDrug TraffickingDrugsGangsGun ViolenceHomicidesViolent Crime (Central America) |
Author: U.S. Senate. Caucus on International Narcotics Control Title: U.S. and Mexican Responses to Mexican Drug Trafficking Organizations Summary: Violence in Mexico continues unhindered without any signs of slowing. This report outlines a series of concrete steps the United States can take to support the Mexican government in its fight against drug trafficking organizations and drug-related violence. While our security partnership with Mexico has deepened in recent years, more can be done to help. The attached report synthesizes information gathered by Caucus staff through a country visit, briefings, interviews, and a review of documents from both government and non-government subject matter experts. The report describes the current strategy and provides important recommendations for policymakers and stakeholders. Details: Washington, DC: The Caucus, 2011. 71p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed June 27, 2011 at: http://drugcaucus.senate.gov/Mexico-Report-Final-5-2011.pdf Year: 2011 Country: Mexico URL: http://drugcaucus.senate.gov/Mexico-Report-Final-5-2011.pdf Shelf Number: 121837 Keywords: Drug CartelsDrug Control PolicyDrug Trafficking (Mexico)Drug Trafficking ControlDrug-Related ViolenceOrganized Crime |
Author: Issa, Darrell E. Title: The Department of Justice’s Operation Fast and Furious: Accounts of ATF Agents Summary: In the fall of 2009, the Department of Justice (DOJ) developed a risky new strategy to combat gun trafficking along the Southwest Border. The new strategy directed federal law enforcement to shift its focus away from seizing firearms from criminals as soon as possible — and to focus instead on identifying members of trafficking networks. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) implemented that strategy using a reckless investigative technique that street agents call “gunwalking.” ATF’s Phoenix Field Division began allowing suspects to walk away with illegally purchased guns. The purpose was to wait and watch, in the hope that law enforcement could identify other members of a trafficking network and build a large, complex conspiracy case. This shift in strategy was known and authorized at the highest levels of the Justice Department. Through both the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Arizona and “Main Justice,” headquarters in Washington, D.C., the Department closely monitored and supervised the activities of the ATF. The Phoenix Field Division established a Gun Trafficking group, called Group VII, to focus on firearms trafficking. Group VII initially began using the new gunwalking tactics in one of its investigations to further the Department’s strategy. The case was soon renamed “Operation Fast and Furious,” and expanded dramatically. It received approval for Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF) funding on January 26, 2010. ATF led a strike force comprised of agents from ATF, Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). The operation’s goal was to establish a nexus between straw purchasers of assault-style weapons in the United States and Mexican drug-trafficking organizations (DTOs) operating on both sides of the United States-Mexico border. Straw purchasers are individuals who are legally entitled to purchase firearms for themselves, but who unlawfully purchase weapons with the intent to transfer them into the hands of DTOs or other criminals. Operation Fast and Furious was a response to increasing violence fostered by the DTOs in Mexico and their increasing need to purchase ever-growing numbers of more powerful weapons in the U.S. An integral component of Fast and Furious was to work with gun shop merchants, or “Federal Firearms Licensees” (FFLs) to track known straw purchasers through the unique serial number of each firearm sold. ATF agents entered the serial numbers of the weapons purchased into the agency’s Suspect Gun Database. These weapons bought by the straw purchasers included AK-47 variants, Barrett .50 caliber sniper rifles, .38 caliber revolvers, and the FN Five-seveN. During Fast and Furious, ATF frequently monitored actual transactions between the FFLs and straw purchasers. After the purchases, ATF sometimes conducted surveillance of these weapons with assistance from local police departments. Such surveillance included following the vehicles of the straw purchasers. Frequently, the straw purchasers transferred the weapons they bought to stash houses. In other instances, they transferred the weapons to third parties. The volume, frequency, and circumstances of these transactions clearly established reasonable suspicion to stop and question the buyers. Agents are trained to use such interactions to develop probable cause to arrest the suspect or otherwise interdict the weapons and deter future illegal purchases. Operation Fast and Furious sought instead to allow the flow of guns from straw purchasers to the third parties. Instead of trying to interdict the weapons, ATF purposely avoided contact with known straw purchasers or curtailed surveillance, allowing guns to fall into the hands of criminals and bandits on both sides of the border. Though many line agents objected vociferously, ATF and DOJ leadership continued to prevent them from making every effort to interdict illegally purchased firearms. Instead, leadership’s focus was on trying to identify additional conspirators, as directed by the Department’s strategy for combating Mexican Drug Cartels. ATF and DOJ leadership were interested in seeing where these guns would ultimately end up. They hoped to establish a connection between the local straw buyers in Arizona and the Mexico-based DTOs. By entering serial numbers from suspicious transactions into the Suspect Gun Database, ATF would be quickly notified as each one was later recovered at crime scenes and traced, either in the United States or in Mexico. The Department’s leadership allowed the ATF to implement this flawed strategy, fully aware of what was taking place on the ground. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Arizona encouraged and supported every single facet of Fast and Furious. Main Justice was involved in providing support and approving various aspects of the Operation, including wiretap applications that would necessarily include painstakingly detailed descriptions of what ATF knew about the straw buyers it was monitoring. This hapless plan allowed the guns in question to disappear out of the agency’s view. As a result, this chain of events inevitably placed the guns in the hands of violent criminals. ATF would only see these guns again after they turned up at a crime scene. Tragically, many of these recoveries involved loss of life. While leadership at ATF and DOJ no doubt regard these deaths as tragic, the deaths were a clearly foreseeable result of the strategy. Both line agents and gun dealers who cooperated with the ATF repeatedly expressed concerns about that risk, but ATF supervisors did not heed those warnings. Instead, they told agents to follow orders because this was sanctioned from above. They told gun dealers not to worry because they would make sure the guns didn’t fall into the wrong hands. Unfortunately, ATF never achieved the laudable goal of dismantling a drug cartel. In fact, ATF never even got close. After months and months of investigative work, Fast and Furious resulted only in indictments of 20 straw purchasers. Those indictments came only after the death of U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry. The indictments, filed January 19, 2011, focus mainly on what is known as “lying and buying.” Lying and buying involves a straw purchaser falsely filling out ATF Form 4473, which is to be completed truthfully in order to legally acquire a firearm. Even worse, ATF knew most of the indicted straw purchasers to be straw purchasers before Fast and Furious even began. In response to criticism, ATF and DOJ leadership denied allegations that gunwalking occurred in Fast and Furious by adopting an overly narrow definition of the term. They argue that gunwalking is limited to cases in which ATF itself supplied the guns directly. As field agents understood the term, however, gunwalking includes situations in which ATF had contemporaneous knowledge of illegal gun purchases and purposely decided not to attempt any interdiction. The agents also described situations in which ATF facilitated or approved transactions to known straw buyers. Both situations are even more disturbing in light of the ATF’s certain knowledge that weapons previously purchased by the same straw buyers had been trafficked into Mexico and may have reached the DTOs. When the full parameters of this program became clear to the agents assigned to Group VII, a rift formed among Group VII’s agents in Phoenix. Several agents blew the whistle on this reckless operation only to face punishment and retaliation from ATF leadership. Sadly, only the tragic murder of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry provided the necessary impetus for DOJ and ATF leadership to finally indict the straw buyers whose regular purchases they had monitored for 14 months. Even then, it was not until after whistleblowers later reported the issue to Congress that the Justice Department finally issued a policy directive that prohibited gunwalking. This report is the first in a series regarding Operation Fast and Furious. Possible future reports and hearings will likely focus on the actions of the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Arizona, the decisions faced by gun shop owners (FFLs) as a result of ATF’s actions, and the remarkably ill-fated decisions made by Justice Department officials in Washington, especially within the Criminal Division and the Office of the Deputy Attorney General. This first installment focuses on ATF’s misguided approach of letting guns walk. The report describes the agents’ outrage about the use of gunwalking as an investigative technique and the continued denials and stonewalling by DOJ and ATF leadership. It provides some answers as to what went wrong with Operation Fast and Furious. Further questions for key ATF and DOJ decision makers remain unanswered. For example, what leadership failures within the Department of Justice allowed this program to thrive? Who will be held accountable and when? Details: Washington, DC: United States Congress, 2011. 51p. Source: Internet Resource: Joint Staff Report: Accessed July 20, 2011 at: http://grassley.senate.gov/judiciary/upload/ATF-06-14-11-Joint-Issa-Grassley-report-on-agent-findings.pdf Year: 2011 Country: United States URL: http://grassley.senate.gov/judiciary/upload/ATF-06-14-11-Joint-Issa-Grassley-report-on-agent-findings.pdf Shelf Number: 122129 Keywords: Border SecurityDrug CartelsGun ControlGun ViolenceGuns (U.S.)Illegal GunsOrganized CrimeTrafficking in Weaspons |
Author: Title: War and Drugs in Colombia Summary: Drugs finance the left-wing insurgent Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the far-right United Self-Defence Forces of Colombia (AUC) to a large degree, and thus are an integral part of Colombia's conflict. But while the state must confront drug trafficking forcefully, President Alvaro Uribe's claim that the conflict pits a democracy against merely "narco-terrorists" who must be met by all-out war does not do justice to the complexity of the decades-old struggle. Fighting drugs and drug trafficking is a necessary but not sufficient condition for moving Colombia toward peace. The view that anti-drug and anti-insurgency policies are indistinguishable reduces the chances either will succeed and hinders the search for a sustainable peace. More crops have been sprayed under President Uribe than ever before in Colombia, effectively reducing coca cultivation from more than 100,000 hectares in late 2002 to some 86,000 hectares at the end of 2003. Hundreds of small basic coca processing facilities as well as more sophisticated cocaine laboratories have been destroyed by the police and army. However, cocaine street prices in the U.S. have not increased and consumption remains high despite a 17 per cent increase in cocaine seizures in Europe and a substantial increase in cocaine consumption in new markets like Brazil. Aerial spraying is not likely to keep pace with the geographic mobility and increasing productivity of illicit crops. The interdiction of drug and chemical precursor shipments is very difficult, not least because of the porosity of Colombia's borders, and alternative development programs have been insufficient. The finances of the armed groups do not appear to have been hit hard, and everything indicates that they can keep the war going for years. While fighting drugs is clearly crucial, peace must remain Colombia's policy priority. The paramilitary AUC evolved from serving the drug barons of the 1980s and early 1990s as hired guns into a national federation of war lords in charge of an ever larger chunk of the drug business. Fighting the rebel National Liberation Army (ELN) and FARC in part linked with state agents, the AUC committed atrocious crimes against civilians they stigmatised as guerrilla supporters. At the beginning of 2005 and after eighteen months of negotiations, the Uribe administration has demobilised some 3,000 paramilitary fighters, including the notorious AUC chief Salavtore Mancuso, who is wanted, along with a number of other paramilitary leaders, in the U.S. on drug trafficking charges. Nevertheless, the paramilitary drug networks appear to remain in place, with the bulk of their illegal assets, particularly in rural Colombia, unaffected. The government has failed to establish promising peace talks with the ELN, the insurgent group with the most tenuous drug links. Nor has it significantly weakened the FARC -- whose ties to drugs are deep -- despite much intensified security efforts and a major military offensive (Plan Patriota) begun in 2003. The FARC retains a strong presence in most coca and poppy growing regions and participates actively, along with the AUC and the new generation of "baby drug cartels", in the narcotics business. Details: Brussels: International Crisis Group, 2005. 44p. Source: Internet Resource: Latin American Report No. 11: Accessed July 21, 2011 at: http://www.crisisgroup.org/~/media/Files/latin-america/colombia/11_war_and_drugs_in_colombia.pdf Year: 2005 Country: Colombia URL: http://www.crisisgroup.org/~/media/Files/latin-america/colombia/11_war_and_drugs_in_colombia.pdf Shelf Number: 107689 Keywords: Drug CartelsDrug Trafficking (Colombia) |
Author: Bjerke, Maxwell E. Title: Explaining Variation in the Apprehension of Mexican Drug Trafficking Cartel Leaders Summary: Successive Mexican administrations have turned to the deployment of military and federal law enforcement agencies to respond to crises, recently focusing in particular on targeting the leaders of major drug cartels in their counternarcotics efforts. However, since 2000 Mexico’s government’s efforts to control criminal activities in these cities have met with varying success. During that period, the Mexican federal government has apprehended ten leading members of the Arellano-Felix Organization (AFO), one of the most prolific drug trafficking organizations. In contrast, only three major cartel leaders have been apprehended from the Carrillo Fuentes Organization, (CFO), another enduring drug trafficking organization. This thesis draws upon theories of organization and path dependence to explain variation in the Mexican government’s success in arresting major cartel leaders. It argues that variation between the AFO and CFO in their internal structures — in particular, the AFO’s low level of professionalism relative to that of the CFO — has facilitated the apprehension of the AFO leadership. In terms of path dependence, the thesis finds that the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s focus on the AFO is due to the legacy of a random event, the AFO predecessor’s role in the 1985 kidnapping and murder of DEA Special Agent Enrique Camarena. The DEA has clung to this case across twenty-five years and therefore has remained focused on the AFO, in order to justify U.S. counterdrug efforts in Mexico. Changing U.S.-Mexico relations have facilitated the DEA’s focus on the AFO, particularly since 2000. Details: Monterey, CA: Naval Postgraduate School, 2010. 105p. Source: Internet Resource: Thesis: Accessed July 21, 2011 at: http://dodreports.com/pdf/ada524554.pdf Year: 2010 Country: Mexico URL: http://dodreports.com/pdf/ada524554.pdf Shelf Number: 122141 Keywords: Drug CartelsDrug Trafficking (Mexico)Drug Trafficking Control |
Author: Michel, Kenneth Title: Mexico and the Cocaine Epidemic: The New Colombia or a New Problem Summary: Recently, there has been an increasing amount of attention paid to Mexico and its struggle with drug cartels. The drug war in Mexico has cost the lives of 28,000 people since 2006, leading to a growing concern that Mexico may become a narco-state. Although the situation in Mexico seems uncontrollable, this is not the first time drug trafficking organizations (DTO) have threatened the livelihood of a state. Colombia from the 1980s through the mid- 1990s was dominated by cartels that ruled with violence and almost brought Colombia to its knees. Colombia today continues with its fight against DTOs; however, the security of the state is no longer directly threatened by cartels. This thesis will discuss the history of the cocaine trade and explain why Mexico was able to supplant Colombia as the cocaine epicenter. Likewise, we will discuss the U.S. strategy to combat DTOs and identify shortcomings in order to implement a better strategy to defeat the cartels. We have seen an increase in violence in Mexico and it is critical for the U.S. to act in order to prevent the U.S. homeland from coming under siege by the bloody Mexican drug war fueled by the cartels. Details: Monterey, CA: Naval Postgraduate School, 2010. 109p. Source: Internet Resource: Thesis: Accessed July 22, 2011 at: http://dodreports.com/pdf/ada536473.pdf Year: 2010 Country: Mexico URL: http://dodreports.com/pdf/ada536473.pdf Shelf Number: 122142 Keywords: CocaineDrug CartelsDrug Trafficking (Mexico and Colombia)Drugs |
Author: Campbell, David R. Title: Evaluating the Impact of Drug Trafficking Organizations on the Stability of the Mexican State Summary: Since 2007, when President Felipe Calderon declared his government’s war on the drug trafficking organizations operating in his country, the level of narcotics related violence has increased dramatically. The violence, which had been largely confined to factions of the cartels, now threatens every citizen and is devastating the economy of the border region. This thesis evaluates the impact of Mexican drug cartels on the stability of the Mexican State and on the security of the U.S. The primary conclusion drawn is that the Mexican state is unlikely to fail as state failure is defined, but the Mexican government is likely to return to a one party system under which drug trafficking and corruption are tolerated but the violence does not directly affect the average Mexican. While current U.S. efforts toward increased border security and assistance to Mexico in the form of the Merida Initiative have made positive impacts, it is only by decreasing U.S. demand for illegal narcotics and encouraging Mexican economic growth that both nations can make real progress in the drug war. Details: Fort Leavenworth, KS: U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, 2010. 66p. Source: Internet Resource: Thesis: Accessed July 22, 2011 at: http://dodreports.com/pdf/ada524420.pdf Year: 2010 Country: Mexico URL: http://dodreports.com/pdf/ada524420.pdf Shelf Number: 122143 Keywords: Border SecurityDrug CartelsDrug Trafficking (Mexico)Drug Trafficking ControlDrugsMerida Initiative |
Author: Torre, Luis V. de la Title: Drug-Trafficking and Police Corruption: A Comparison of Colombia and Mexico Summary: Police officers working in countries plagued by drug trafficking are often offered a choice between "plata o plomo" ("silver or lead"). Given this option, it is not surprising that levels of police corruption are high in these nation-states. Significantly, however, levels of police corruption do differ radically between those countries where the levels of drug production and trafficking are similar. This thesis examines the case of Mexico, where corruption has been historically high and has increased in recent times; and the case of Colombia, where levels of police corruption have been relatively low and might even be said to be on the decline. Specialists in police reform and anticorruption typically look at administrative factors such as ethics, salary levels, the purging of corrupt officials, and the recruiting and training of clean officers as essential elements in the prevention of police corruption. While these factors explain some of the differences in levels of corruption, this thesis fills an important gap in the existing literature by moving beyond these conventional explanations. In particular, it introduces a country-specific approach to drug-related police corruption, including factors such as the organizational structure of the police force (centralized or decentralized), the legacy of the political criminal nexus in the country concerned, and both the size and ideology of the drug trafficking organizations involved. Details: Monterey, CA: Naval Postgraduate School, 2008. 141p. Source: Internet Resource: Thesis: Accessed July 22, 2011 at: http://dodreports.com/pdf/ada483659.pdf Year: 2008 Country: Colombia URL: http://dodreports.com/pdf/ada483659.pdf Shelf Number: 122144 Keywords: Drug CartelsDrug Trafficking (Colombia and Mexico)Police Corruption |
Author: Schaefer, Agnes Gereben Title: Security in Mexico: Implications for U.S. Policy Options Summary: The security structure in Mexico is characterized by shifting responsibilities, duplication of services, and general instability, along with a lack of coordination among federal, state, and local security forces. The backdrop of a deteriorating security situation in Mexico and change in administration in the United States demands a closer examination of potential priorities and policy options to guide future U.S.-Mexico relations. U.S. aid to Mexico has typically focused on a narrow set of outputs — improved technology, training, and equipment to prevent drug trafficking. Despite these efforts, Mexico's security situation continues to deteriorate. To help inform debate, this study examined a set of policy options for the United States (strategic partnership, status quo, and retrenchment), along with promising potential policy priorities (help Mexico streamline delivery of security services, bridge the gap between federal and local security, support Mexico's efforts to address domestic security concerns, and build trust in security institutions). Problems related to drug and human trafficking, corruption, weapon smuggling, and gang violence have spilled into the United States, reaching far beyond the border. For this and other reasons, the United States has a significant stake in the success or failure of Mexico's security reform measures. Details: Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2009. 108p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed July 22, 2011 at: http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/2009/RAND_MG876.pdf Year: 2009 Country: Mexico URL: http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/2009/RAND_MG876.pdf Shelf Number: 122145 Keywords: Border SecurityDrug CartelsDrug Trafficking (Mexico)DrugsGang ViolenceGangs |
Author: Meyer, Maureen Title: A Dangerous Journey through Mexico: Human Rights Violations against Migrants in Transit Summary: The August 2010 massacre of 72 migrants in Tamaulipas, Mexico was not an isolated event but rather an alarming example of the daily abuses suffered by migrants in transit in the country, concludes a report published today by the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) and the Miguel Agustin Pro Juarez Human Rights Center (Center Prodh). The report, A Dangerous Journey Through Mexico: Human Rights Violations Against Migrants in Transit, documents how migrants, primarily Central Americans, are often beaten, extorted, sexually abused, and/or kidnapped by criminal groups while they travel through Mexico on their way to the United States. It discusses the failure of the Mexican government to protect migrants in transit and the direct participation or acquiescence of Mexican authorities in several cases of abuse. Drawing from work of migrants' rights organizations, the report includes testimonies of three migrants who were kidnapped by criminal groups in Mexico. Details: Washington, DC: Washington Office on Latin America, 2010. 12p Source: Internet Resource: Accessed September 28, 2011 at: http://www.wola.org/publications/a_dangerous_journey_through_mexico_human_rights_violations_against_migrants_in_transit Year: 2010 Country: Mexico URL: http://www.wola.org/publications/a_dangerous_journey_through_mexico_human_rights_violations_against_migrants_in_transit Shelf Number: 122936 Keywords: Drug CartelsDrug TraffickingHuman RightsImmigrationKidnappingsMigrants (Mexico) |
Author: International Crisis Group Title: Guatemala: Drug Trafficking and Violence Summary: The bloody eruption of Mexican-led cartels into Guatemala is the latest chapter in a vicious cycle of violence and institutional failure. Geography has placed the country – midway between Colombia and the U.S. – at one of the world’s busiest intersections for illegal drugs. Cocaine (and now ingredients for synthetic drugs) flows in by air, land and sea and from there into Mexico en route to the U.S. Cool highlands are an ideal climate for poppy cultivation. Weapons, given lenient gun laws and a long history of arms smuggling, are plentiful. An impoverished, underemployed population is a ready source of recruits. The winner of November’s presidential election will need to address endemic social and economic inequities while confronting the violence and corruption associated with drug trafficking. Decisive support from the international community is needed to assure these challenges do not overwhelm a democracy still recovering from decades of political violence and military rule. Gangs and common criminals flourish under the same conditions that allow drug traffickers to operate with brazen impunity: demoralised police forces, an often intimidated or corrupted judicial system and a population so distrustful of law enforcement that the rich depend on private security forces while the poor arm themselves in local vigilante squads. Over the past decade, the homicide rate has doubled, from twenty to more than 40 per 100,000 inhabitants. While traffickers contribute to the crime wave in border regions and along drug corridors, youth gangs terrorise neighbourhoods in Guatemala City. The outrages perpetrated by the most violent Mexican gang, the Zetas – who decapitate and dismember their victims for maximum impact – generate the most headlines. Violent drug cartels, however, are only one manifestation of the gangs and clandestine associations that have long dominated Guatemalan society and crippled its institutions. How to change this dynamic will be one of the most difficult challenges facing the winner of November’s presidential election. Both Otto Pérez Molina and Manuel Baldizón have promised to get tough on criminals, but a hardline approach that fails to include a strategy to foster rule of law is unlikely to yield anything more than sporadic, short-term gains. For decades, the state itself was the most prolific violator of human rights. During the 36-year conflict that ended with the peace accords of 1996, the armed forces murdered dissidents in urban areas and razed villages suspected of harbouring guerrilla forces. Just as Guatemala was recovering from years of political violence, control of the South American drug trade was shifting from Colombia to Mexico. Increased interdiction in the Caribbean, plus the arrest of Colombian cartel leaders, allowed Mexican traffickers to begin taking over drug distribution in the late 1990s. Mexican President Felipe Calderón’s crackdown after 2006 forced traffickers to import increasing amounts of contraband into Central America and then move it north over land. The shipment of more drugs through Central America has had a multiplier effect on illegal activities. Violence is especially intense in coastal and border departments, where traffickers and gangs have diversified into other activities, such as local drug dealing, prostitution, extortion and kidnapping. In some regions, narcotics traffickers have become prominent entrepreneurs, with both licit and illicit businesses. They participate in community events, distribute gifts to the needy and finance political campaigns. Their well-armed henchmen offer protection from other gangs and common criminals. Those who finance opium poppy cultivation provide impoverished indigenous communities with greater monetary income than they have ever known. But these domestic trafficking groups also operate with impunity to seize land and intimidate or eliminate competitors. Local police and judicial authorities, under-resourced and widely mistrusted, offer little opposition. There are signs of progress. The attorney general is reviving long-stalled investigations into past human rights abuses while aggressively pursuing the current threat posed by organised crime. A veteran human rights activist was tapped by the outgoing government to reform the police. The International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG), a UN-Guatemalan initiative, is pursuing high-profile criminal cases. Donors are financing vetted units, providing new investigative tools and building new judicial facilities. Moreover, over the past year, Central American authorities, with international help, have arrested half a dozen high-level Guatemalan traffickers who are awaiting extradition to the U.S. But ending the impunity that has allowed trafficking networks and other illegal organisations to flourish will require a long-term, multi-dimensional effort. To shore up recent gains and lay the ground work for sustainable reform it is urgent that: •the new president allow Attorney General Claudia Paz y Paz to complete her four-year term, fully support Police Reform Commissioner Helen Mack and encourage CICIG’s efforts to pursue high profile cases and build prosecutorial capacity; •political and business leaders work together both to increase government revenues for crime-fighting and social programs and to devise anti-corruption initiatives that will hold officials responsible for their use of public funds; •regional leaders increase cooperation to interdict illegal narcotics shipments and to break up transnational criminal groups through entities such as the Central American Integration System (SICA); •the U.S. and other consuming countries provide financial aid commensurate with their national interest in stopping the drug trade and aimed not just at arresting traffickers but also at building strong, democratically accountable institutions; and •international leaders open a serious debate on counter-narcotics policies, including strategies designed to curtail both production and consumption; it is past time to re-evaluate policies that have failed either to alleviate the suffering caused by drug addiction or to reduce the corruption and violence associated with drug production and trafficking. Details: Bogota; Brussels: International Crisis Group, 2011. 32p. Source: Internet Resource: Latin America Report No. 39: Accessed October 18, 2011 at: http://www.crisisgroup.org/~/media/Files/latin-america/39%20Guatemala%20--%20Drug%20Trafficking%20and%20Violence.pdf Year: 2011 Country: Guatemala URL: http://www.crisisgroup.org/~/media/Files/latin-america/39%20Guatemala%20--%20Drug%20Trafficking%20and%20Violence.pdf Shelf Number: 123052 Keywords: Drug CartelsDrug Trafficking (Guatemala)Drugs and CrimeGangsHomicidesOrganized CrimeViolent Crime |
Author: Steinberg, Nik Title: Neither Rights Nor Security: Killings, Torture, and Disappearances in Mexico’s “War on Drugs” Summary: Five years since President Felipe Calderón declared “war” on organized crime in Mexico and dispatched the military to confront the country’s drug cartels, the government’s policy is failing on two fronts. It has not succeeded in reducing violence, and has resulted in a dramatic increase in grave human rights violations, which have only exacerbated the climate of violence, lawlessness, and fear that exists in many parts of the country. Based on extensive research in five states — Baja California, Chihuahua, Guerrero, Nuevo León, and Tabasco — Neither Rights Nor Security presents compelling evidence of the systematic use of torture by Mexican security forces, as well as the involvement of police and soldiers in scores of enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings. These are not isolated acts. Rather as the testimonies of victims, eyewitnesses, and evidence from public information requests and official government statistics show, these abusive tactics are endemic to Mexico’s counternarcotics efforts. The violations persist in large part because the members of security forces who commit them are virtually never held accountable. Many cases languish in the military justice system. And even when investigations are opened in the civilian justice system, prosecutors repeatedly fail to take basic steps such as identifying and interviewing witnesses. Nevertheless, government officials are often quick to dismiss victims’ allegations as false and to cast victims as criminals. Such accusations compound the suffering already inflicted by these serious violations and place the burden on victims and their families to conduct investigations themselves. Neither Rights Nor Security demonstrates how this pattern of abuse and impunity is undercutting Mexico’s efforts to reduce violence, dismantle criminal networks, and restore the rule of law in parts of the country where it has been badly damaged. Details: New York: Human Rights Watch, 2011. 218p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed November 10, 2011 at: http://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/mexico1111webwcover_0.pdf Year: 2011 Country: Mexico URL: http://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/mexico1111webwcover_0.pdf Shelf Number: 123278 Keywords: DisappearancesDrug CartelsDrug TraffickingHomicidesHuman Rights (Mexico)Organized CrimePolice Use of ForceTortureViolence |
Author: Paul, Christopher Title: The Challenge of Violent Drug-Trafficking Organizations: An Assessment of Mexican Security Based on Existing RAND Research on Urban Unrest, Insurgency, and Defense-Sector Reform Summary: Violent drug-trafficking organizations (VDTOs) in Mexico produce, transship, and deliver into the United States tens of billions of dollars worth of narcotics annually, but their activities are not limited to drug trafficking. VDTOs have also engaged in human trafficking, weapon trafficking, kidnapping, money laundering, extortion, bribery, racketeering, and assassinations. In an effort to clarify the scope and details of the challenges posed by VDTOs, a RAND team conducted a Delphi expert elicitation exercise, the results of which offer an assessment of the contemporary security situation in Mexico through the lens of existing RAND research on related issues. The exercise centered around three strands of prior RAND research on urban instability and unrest, historical insurgencies, and defense-sector reform. Although this prior research was not designed specifically for the study of Mexico, all three areas offer applicable insights. Assessment scorecards from these projects were used to obtain input from the expert panel and to guide the resulting discussion. The goal was not to break significant new ground in understanding the dynamics of drug violence in Mexico or to offer a qualitative assessment of these dynamics, but rather to provide an empirically based platform for identifying key areas that merit further investigation. Details: Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2011. 108p Source: Internet Resource: Accessed November 21, 2011 at: http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/MG1125.html Year: 2011 Country: Mexico URL: http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/MG1125.html Shelf Number: 123414 Keywords: Border SecurityDrug CartelsDrug EnforcementDrug Trafficking (Mexico)Illegal DrugsViolence |
Author: Hervieu, Benoit Title: Paraguay: Journalists Alone Facing Trafficking Summary: Last February, Reporters Without Borders released its first-ever thematic report on organized crime, the main source of physical danger for journalists since the end of the Cold War. Produced with the help of our correspondents and specialists in several continues, that report underlined how difficult it is for the media to investigate the criminal underworld’s activities, networks and infiltration of society. Aside from covering bloody shootouts between rival cartels, news media of any size usually seem ill-equipped to describe organized crime’s hidden but ubiquitous presence. Paraguay, which a Reporters Without Borders representative visited from 3 to 10 July, is a good example of these problems. Overshadowed by Brazil and Argentina, its two big neighbours in the Southern Common Market (Mercosur), it has long received one of the world’s worst rankings in Transparency International’s corruption index. It is also a major way station in the trafficking of cocaine from the Bolivian Andes to the Southern Cone. While the level of violence is not as high as in Mexico, Colombia or some Central American countries, the persistent corruption, judicial impunity and influence of mafia activity on political and business activity prevent the media and civil society from playing a watchdog role. Although elections brought about a real change of government for the first time in 2008, Paraguay is still struggling to free itself from the code of silence and complicity that prevailed during the decades of dictatorship and affects the media as well. This was clear from interviews with journalists, observers and state officials in Asunción and Concepción, in the border cities of Ciudad del Este and Encarnación, and the Argentine border city of Posadas. Details: Paris: Reporters Without Borders for Press Freedom, 2011. 11p. Source: Inquiry Report: Internet Resource: Accessed February 19, 2012 at http://en.rsf.org/IMG/pdf/paraguay_report.pdf Year: 2011 Country: Paraguay URL: http://en.rsf.org/IMG/pdf/paraguay_report.pdf Shelf Number: 124205 Keywords: Drug CartelsJournalistsMediaOrganized CrimeTrafficking (Paraguay)Violence |
Author: Arnson, Cynthia J. Title: Organized Crime in Central America: The Northern Triangle Summary: Incidents such as the May 2011 massacre on a farm in Guatemala’s Petén region, resulting in the murder and decapitation by drug gangs of 27 peasant farmers and their families, serve to underscore the serious threat to human rights, democratic governance, and the rule of law posed by organized crime in Central America. The international community has begun to address the burgeoning crisis and commit significant resources to the fight against crime and violence; indeed, not since the Central American wars of the 1980s has the region commanded so much attention in the international arena. To better understand the nature, origins, and evolution of organized crime in Central America and the challenges it poses—and thereby contribute to the efforts of policy-makers and civil society to address it—the Latin American Program commissioned original research on the dynamics of organized crime in the three countries of the so-called Northern Triangle—El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras—and on the broader regional context that links these case studies. This publication includes essays by Douglas Farah (El Salvador), Julie López (Guatemala), James Bosworth (Honduras), Steven Dudley, and Cynthia Arnson and Eric Olson (regional overviews) and is part of a series on the sub-regional dynamics of organized crime, focusing especially on the linkages between Central America, Mexico, and the Andean region as well as the growing insertion of Latin America in global transnational crime networks. Details: Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Latin America Program, 2011. 254p. Source: Woodrow Wilson Center Reports on the Americas #29: Internet Resource: Accessed February 21, 2012 at http://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/LAP_single_page.pdf Year: 2011 Country: Central America URL: http://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/LAP_single_page.pdf Shelf Number: 124216 Keywords: Drug CartelsDrug TraffickingEl SalvadorGuatemalaHondurasMexicoOrganized Crime (Central America)Violent Crime |
Author: Mazzitelli, Antonio L. Title: Mexican Cartels Influence in Central America Summary: According to the US Government, over 60 percent of the cocaine intended for the US market transit through Central American. Since the early 1990’s, Colombian and Mexican drug trafficking organizations (DTOs) established logistics bases both on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of Central America, facilitating the movements of large shipments of cocaine. In establishing these routes, the DTOs took advantage of a number of local enabling factors. Among them, the preexistence of well-established smuggling networks, the weakness of law enforcement and judicial structures in most countries in the region, and the overall culture of lawless and impunity resulting from the civil conflicts that marked the paths to democracy of some of these nations. The tough campaigns launched against DTOs by the governments of Colombia and Mexico during the past eight years, coupled with the gradual evolution of both local and foreign criminal organizations (COs) involved in (but not exclusively) cocaine trafficking, seem to have further worsened the situation in Central America. Old styled DTOs and local “transportistas”1 are increasingly challenged by new criminal groups, usually emerging from the military and claiming specific territories. These new groups are exerting a capillary control over all types of criminal activity taking place in the territories under their control. The confrontation between two different criminal “cultures”-- the first, business oriented; the second one, territorial oriented-- constitutes a serious threat not only to the security of citizens, but also to the very consolidation of balanced democratic rule in the region. Mexican DTOs and COs poses a serious threat to Central American, if left unchecked. Responses by national institutions, assisted by their main international partners, will have to be carefully tailored according to the specific feature of the predominant foreign criminal organization operating in its territory. In the case of DTOs, interventions will have to privilege investments in the areas of financial investigations, specialized prosecution and international cooperation, as well as anti-corruption initiatives. In combatting COs (Zetas type), intervention will have to privilege restructuring, professionalization and deployment of local police corps that would then be capable of controlling the territory and preventing the infiltration of external criminal actors. In both cases, governments need to strengthen the intelligence capacity of law enforcement agencies allowing the early identification of the likely threat, its analysis and its subsequent removal. National law enforcement and judicial efforts should also be geared toward the creation of a sincere and mutual beneficial international cooperation (both investigative and judicial) that is built not only on common objectives, but also on the use of common investigative instruments and harmonized procedures. Details: Miami, Florida: Western Hemisphere Security Analysis Center, Applied Research Center, Florida International University, 2011. 30p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed February 21, 2012 at http://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1044&context=whemsac Year: 2011 Country: Central America URL: Shelf Number: 124217 Keywords: Drug CartelsDrug TraffikcingMexicoOrganized CrimeSmuggling |
Author: Bosworth, James Title: Honduras: Organized Crime Gaining Amid Political Chaos Summary: Honduras’ geographic features and location make it an ideal midway point between the drug producers in South America and drug consumers in North America. Nobody has a precise number, but the best estimates predict that several hundred tons of cocaine will transit Honduras this year, of which less than 10 percent will be seized by authorities. In its wake, well-funded transnational criminal organizations combined with local gangs are destabilizing the country’s democratic institutions and making it one of the most dangerous countries in the world in terms of violent crime. Since the 1970’s, Honduran criminal organizations focused on getting drugs - particularly cocaine - in, around and through Honduras, taking a cut of the profit along the way. Honduran Juan Ramoìn Matta Ballesteros ran a key organization trafficking cocaine in the early 1980’s between Colombia and Mexico. At times in the late 1980’s and 1990’s, Colombian groups such as Pablo Escobar’s Medellin Cartel or the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) exercised management, influence and oversight in the trafficking in Honduras, but the power generally remained with the Honduran transportistas. In the past decade, a crackdown on drug trafficking organizations in Colombia combined with the rise of increasingly powerful Mexican cartels stretching their influence into Central America has impacted the trafficking situation in Honduras. Illicit flights from South America and boats with cocaine moving up both coasts have increased. Youth gangs in Honduras provide the traffickers with organizations that can intimidate and murder for cheap. The Sinaloa Cartel bought or forced its management influence over a number of previously Honduran controlled trafficking routes. The Zetas followed suit. The public security situation in Honduras is among the worst in the world, ranking among the top five nations with the highest number of violent crimes and murders per capita. The government estimates that one person is killed every 88 minutes. The UNODC reported that the province of Atlántida, which includes the port city of La Ceiba, may be among the most violent in the Western Hemisphere with 1 person out of every 1,000 killed in violence crimes. Various press rights organizations believe Honduras, along with Mexico, will be one of the two most dangerous countries for journalists this year. In the past year, the country’s counter-drug czar was killed by a Mexican Drug Trafficking Organization (DTO) and a plot was broken up to assassinate the country’s Minister of Security. To complicate matters, the turmoil in Honduras’ political system over the past two years has opened space for increased organized crime activity. An institutional battle, a military coup, and ongoing complications about the international recognition of Honduras’s government have dissuaded the aid and cooperation believed necessary to fight organized crime. While the following sections of this paper describe the specific influence of the Mexican DTOs and other international organizations, there remains a thriving “independent” industry of transportistas in which people unassociated with specific DTOs move cocaine up the coast and sell it at a higher price to DTOs further north. Groups as small as 2 and as large as 25, usually composed of Nicaraguans or Hondurans, will purchase cocaine in southern parts of Central America (Panama, Costa Rica or Nicaragua) from organizations managed by Colombian and Venezuelan DTOs. They then move the cocaine up the coast to Honduras or Guatemala, where they sell it at a profit on the black market that is run by the Sinaloa, Gulf and Zetas organizations. One such micro-DTO, the Reñazcos, is a Honduran family that operates mostly on the Nicaraguan side of the border, transporting cocaine by land and sea through Nicaraguan territory and into Honduras. Once they move the cocaine into Honduras, they transfer control of the drugs to the Mexican DTOs. Although small in size, the organization has been operating for almost a decade. In 2004 they killed several police officers in the Nicaraguan Caribbean city of Bluefields. The Nicaraguan government claimed in late 2010 that the group tried to break several drug traffickers out of prison in that region. Details: Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Latin American Program, 2010. 33p. Source: Working Paper Series on Organized Crime in Central America: Internet Resource: Accessed February 21, 2012 at http://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/Bosworth.FIN.pdf Year: 2010 Country: Honduras URL: http://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/Bosworth.FIN.pdf Shelf Number: 124218 Keywords: Criminal NetworksDrug CartelsDrug TraffickingOrganized Crime (Honduras) |
Author: Madeira, Luis Filipe Title: The international cocaine trade in Guinea-Bissau: current trends and risks Summary: This paper analyses the international, West African and national conditions that fuel the spread of the international drugs trade in West Africa, particularly in Guinea-Bissau, and examines the impact of the international cocaine trade at a social, economic and governance level in this small West African country. Although drug trafficking has a long history in West Africa, over the past five years the region has increasingly attracted international attention as a new hub for the illicit cocaine trade between Latin America and Europe. In the case of Guinea-Bissau, that attention has been all the greater for a number of reasons: a) the visibility of the authorities’ involvement in trafficking, causing international agencies and the media to dub it the “world’s first narco-state”; b) the amount of drugs seized on its territory and the increasing presence of South Americans, to whom this type of activity is attributed; and lastly c) because the country is totally dependent on aid and uses the media attention given to drug trafficking as an argument for keeping aid flowing into the country. Following significant seizures of cocaine in 2006 and 2007, the trade appeared to go into decline in 2008 and 2009, for which the authors outline four possible scenarios, the most likely being that it is continuing but through the employment of other less visible methods, with the traffickers having made only a temporary tactical retreat. Both the global operation of the cocaine market and a number of specific national conditions favour the development of drug trafficking in West Africa and especially Guinea-Bissau. At the systemic level, the enforcement of the global drug-control system tends to push traffickers to select transit routes through states that are already weakened by internal conflict, poverty or both. In recent years, the Latin American drug cartels appear to have shifted their attention to supplying the lucrative European market by developing networks in West Africa, focused around Ghana in the south and Guinea-Bissau in the north. From there the drugs are smuggled into Europe on commercial flights by mules. At the same time, by paying local collaborators in both cash and cocaine, the traffickers are creating a local consumer market for the drug. The geography of Guinea-Bissau, with its myriad of coastal islands, makes it the perfect destination for unloading drugs that have been transported by sea, often from Brazil or Venezuela. The virtual collapse of the country’s administration, the inadequacies of the police and justice sector, impunity, endemic corruption and widespread poverty create fertile conditions for the flourishing of the cocaine trade which, in turn, has further adverse consequences at the social, economic and governance levels. The presence of resourceful and potentially violent South American cartels in Guinea-Bissau has aggravated a situation that was already unsustainable, and drug-related incidents are on the rise. After reporting the involvement of the military and their civilian allies in drug trafficking, several journalists and activists have had to flee the country or go into hiding. Drugs have been discovered at military bases, and seizures made by the police have disappeared after being confiscated by the military. Senior government officials have also reportedly received death threats when seeking to investigate cocaine seizures. The influence that cocaine-trafficking is having on the country’s economy is not yet clear but, as it gains in importance, it is likely to soon generate more wealth than traditional legal activities and thus be more attractive to the local population. The extent of the impact will depend on whether Guinea-Bissau’s role in the trafficking chain is predominantly active or passive. At the social level, domestic drug use is growing, with the resultant addiction and violent crime; addiction to cocaine, and especially crack, is reportedly rampant. Guinea-Bissau lacks the material resources, expertise and experience to address these problems. From a long-term perspective, the attraction of the drugs trade for disenfranchised youth may also undermine social control mechanisms that prevent crime and violence. So far, however, Bissau’s youth, though faced with unemployment and few opportunities, have shown little desire to go down that route. Nevertheless, the consequences of globalisation, the food crisis and the inability of external aid to respond to such problems could quickly change the situation. The authors argue that, in the long term, in order to tackle the enormous challenges that the drug trade poses in route countries, a less securitizing agenda needs to be put in place globally, and the prohibition-based international consensus should be debated and reconsidered. In the meantime, a number of shorter-term measures need to be taken urgently to halt the negative effects of this activity at international and national level. These include improving the coordination of efforts at national, sub-regional, regional and international level, reforming the country’s institutions, supporting civil society, rehabilitation initiatives and conducting further research to gain an accurate understanding of the scale of the problem. Details: Oslo, Norway: The Norwegian Peacebuilding Centre (Noref), 2011. 18p. Source: Noref Working Paper: Internet Resource: Accessed March 14, 2012 at http://www.peacebuilding.no/var/ezflow_site/storage/original/application/7563aa361160ef275ddd4f0812c6f41e.pdf Year: 2011 Country: Africa URL: http://www.peacebuilding.no/var/ezflow_site/storage/original/application/7563aa361160ef275ddd4f0812c6f41e.pdf Shelf Number: 124539 Keywords: Cocaine (Guinea-Bissau)Drug CartelsDrug Trafficking |
Author: Farah, Douglas Title: Dangerous Work: Violence Against Mexico’s Journalists and Lessons from Colombia Summary: The job of Mexican journalists covering drug trafficking and organized crime along the Mexico-U.S. border has been called the most dangerous job in the world. And the danger has spread from journalists for traditional media to bloggers and citizens who post reports on drug cartel violence through social media such as Twitter and Facebook. In many ways the experience of Mexico today mirrors the experience of journalists in Colombia in the 1980s and 1990s, when much of that country was a war zone and reporters and editors were being killed or driven into exile by drug traffickers, paramilitary squads, and Marxist guerrillas. Yet the response of the governments and media organizations in the two countries could hardly be more different, nor could the results. Many of the successful steps taken in Colombia could be implemented in Mexico in a relatively short time. This report looks at some of the lessons Mexico could learn from Colombia’s experience, as well as some reasons these lessons have not yet been taken to heart. In addition to conducting a literature review, the author interviewed more than a dozen Colombian and Mexican journalists, in person and by e-mail, to learn more directly about the experiences of those who have lived or are now living on the front lines, in situations of significant risk. Details: Washington, DC: Center for International Media Assistance, National Endowment for Democracy, 2010. 36p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed April 12, 2012 at: http://cima.ned.org/sites/default/files/CIMA-Mexico-Colombia%20-%2004-09-12.pdf Year: 2010 Country: Mexico URL: http://cima.ned.org/sites/default/files/CIMA-Mexico-Colombia%20-%2004-09-12.pdf Shelf Number: 124945 Keywords: Drug CartelsDrug Trafficking (Mexico)JournalistsMediaOrganized Crime |
Author: McCaffrey, Barry R. Title: Texas Border Security: A Strategic Military Assessment Summary: During the past two years the state of Texas has become increasingly threatened by the spread of Mexican cartel organized crime. The threat reflects a change in the strategic intent of the cartels to move their operations into the United States. In effect, the cartels seek to create a “sanitary zone” inside the Texas border -- one county deep -- that will provide sanctuary from Mexican law enforcement and, at the same time, enable the cartels to transform Texas’ border counties into narcotics transshipment points for continued transport and distribution into the continental United States. To achieve their objectives the cartels are relying increasingly on organized gangs to provide expendable and unaccountable manpower to do their dirty work. These gangs are recruited on the streets of Texas cities and inside Texas prisons by top-tier gangs who work in conjunction with the cartels. Details: Mico, TX: Colgen, 2011. 30p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed May 2, 2012 at: http://mccaul.house.gov/uploads/Final%20Report-Texas%20Border%20Security.pdf Year: 2011 Country: United States URL: http://mccaul.house.gov/uploads/Final%20Report-Texas%20Border%20Security.pdf Shelf Number: 125122 Keywords: Border Security (Texas)Drug CartelsDrug TraffickingOrganized Crime |
Author: Goddard, Terry Title: How to Fix a Broken Border. A Three-Part Series Summary: If the United States wants effective border security, then more effective law‐enforcement measures must be taken. The first step is to identify the right target: the increasingly sophisticated smuggling organizations known as the “cartels.” By attacking the money laundering which is the life blood of the cartels, and making the bi‐national criminal investigation and prosecution of cartel bosses a priority, the border can be made significantly more secure. In the process, the violence in Mexico and the smuggling of drugs and people into the United States will be reduced. But this requires a unified focus, with state and federal law‐enforcement agencies cooperating to target organized criminal activity rather than economic migrants. As described in the How to Fix a Broken Border series of papers, written by former Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard, an effective border‐enforcement strategy must do the following: Adopt a Coordinated, Multi‐dimensional, Bi‐national Approach • We must stop compartmentalizing border objectives by illegal activity. Current agency efforts are incorrectly focused on stopping particular kinds of contraband. But a successful effort cannot be about unauthorized immigrants alone (Immigration and Customs Enforcement), or drugs alone (Drug Enforcement Agency), or guns alone (Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms). It must address, disrupt, and destroy the total business of the cartels. • We need a comprehensive, bi‐national, border‐wide strategy that includes federal authorities and Mexican law enforcement, as well as state and local police. Target Cartel Money • A more effective border‐enforcement strategy starts with the money. Billions of dollars in illegal revenue from the sale of drugs and other contraband flows into cartel pocketbooks each year. This revenue crosses the border, from the United States into Mexico, by many means, ranging from bulk cash shipments and wire transfers to funnel bank accounts and stored value devices. • Any serious border defense must go after the cartel’s money, but that is not happening. U.S. Treasury Department officials who observe and regulate the international movement of currency remain unwilling or unable to go after money laundering across the Mexican border. • Generally speaking, the failures of the anti‐money laundering effort are not because of inadequate statutes, but a failure of enforcement. Again and again, huge amounts of funds flowing illegally out of this country could be stopped if financial institutions and government agencies focused on the problem and aggressively policed unlawful or questionable behavior. • Current federal law limits the circumstances under which prosecutors can seize the cash they believe to be part of a criminal scheme. In contrast, Arizona law makes it far easier to hold suspected funds pending further examination of their source. Expanding federal authority, with appropriate safeguards, would enhance anti‐money laundering efforts. Close Money‐Laundering Loopholes • The cross‐border movement of “stored value” devices is a particularly critical problem. These innocent‐looking plastic cards can contain thousands if not millions of dollars and are not covered by any currency disclosure requirements at the border. Under U.S. law, no traveler may take over $10,000 in cash or cash equivalents, called “monetary instruments,” into or out of the United States without declaring that money at the border. However, stored value devices are not listed as monetary instruments or otherwise subject to declaration at the border, even though they could contain many times the $10,000 disclosure threshold. This loophole, clearly identified by federal authorities over five years ago, provides smugglers with a massive opportunity to evade anti‐money laundering security at the border. • The U.S. government must enforce existing anti‐money laundering provisions, and quickly close existing loopholes, to stop (or at least slow down) the cash flowing to the cartels. Until government agencies, especially Treasury, get more serious about cutting off the illegal international flow of funds, we can never say we have a “secure” border. Go After Cartel Bosses • Current law‐enforcement efforts primarily target low‐level subcontractors for the cartels. • This country must focus on the arrest and incarceration of cartel leaders. We need to send a clear message that it will be extremely hazardous for anyone to take a fallen leader’s place. • For example, the arrest, prosecution, and incarceration of Chapo Guzman, the notorious leader of the Sinaloa cartel, would significantly boost our border‐enforcement efforts. • Ultimately, going after the cartel bosses will require federal leadership and close cooperation with the law enforcement of Mexico. The lack of bi‐national coordination, in effect, provides cartel leaders a sanctuary south of the border. Protect Ports of Entry • One of the consequences of the hysteria about border security is the buildup of the Border Patrol at the expense of customs enforcement. With the de‐emphasis on customs inspections, more contraband gets through the ports. • By appearing tough—making fortification of the border with additional Border Patrol the top priority, while deemphasizing the ports of entry—it is now easier for the criminals to come through our front door. • Most of the criminal activity has shifted to the border crossings, not the places in between. We need more resources for inspections at ports of entry. If this country wants to stop smuggling, we must take a broader and more analytical approach to what motivates the smugglers—and the means by which they illegally move drugs, money, guns, and people in such large volumes with such impunity. Going after the contraband product or smuggled people, as this country has been doing for years, is destined to be an endless chase. The cartels will just regroup and continue operations, learning from their mistakes. If we are serious about stopping the threat on the border, we have to dismantle the criminal organizations that carry the contraband and take away the tools that make them so effective. Anything less will fail. Details: Washington, DC: Immigration Policy Center, 2011. 3 parts Source: Internet Resource: Accessed June 29, 2012 at: http://www.immigrationpolicy.org/perspectives/how-fix-broken-border-three-part-series Year: 2011 Country: United States URL: http://www.immigrationpolicy.org/perspectives/how-fix-broken-border-three-part-series Shelf Number: 125429 Keywords: Border Security (U.S.)Drug CartelsDrug TraffickingOrganized CrimeSmuggling |
Author: Pew Research Center. Global Attitudes Project Title: Mexicans Back Military Campaign Against Cartels: Despite Doubts About Success, Human Rights Costs Summary: As Felipe Calderón’s term as Mexico’s president draws to a close, Mexicans continue to strongly back his policy of deploying the military to combat the country’s powerful drug cartels. Eight-in-ten say this is the right course, a level of support that has remained remarkably constant since the Pew Global Attitudes Project first asked the question in 2009. Support for Calderón’s strategy continues despite limited confidence that the government is winning the drug war, and widespread concerns about its costs. Just 47% believe progress is being made against drug traffickers, virtually identical to the 45% who held this opinion in 2011. Three-in-ten today say the government is actually losing ground against the cartels, while 19% see no change in the stand-off between the authorities and crime syndicates. At the same time, the public is uneasy about the moral cost of the drug war: 74% say human rights violations by the military and police are a very big problem. But concern about rights abuses coexist with continued worries about drug-related violence and crime – both of which strong majorities describe as pressing issues in Mexico. President Calderón himself remains popular. A 58%-majority has a favorable opinion of Mexico’s current leader. Although down from a high of 68% in 2009, this rating nonetheless puts him on par with the 56% who have a positive view of the Institutional Revolutionary Party’s (PRI’s) Enrique Peña Nieto, whose ratings clearly topped those of his opponents when the poll was conducted between March 20 and April 2 of this year. Whether Peña Nieto or any of the other presidential candidates have a solution to Mexico’s drug problems is an open question for the Mexican public. When asked which political party could do a better job of dealing with organized crime and drug traffickers, about equal numbers name Calderón’s National Action Party (PAN) (28%) and Peña Nieto’s PRI (25%), while only 13% point to the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD). Fully 23% volunteer that none of the parties is particularly capable of dealing with this critical issue. These are the principal findings from the latest survey in Mexico by the Pew Research Center’s Global Attitudes Project. Conducted face-to-face with 1,200 adults from across the country, the poll also finds that most Mexicans (61%) blame both the United States and their own country for the continued drug violence within their borders. While solid majorities would welcome U.S. assistance in combating the cartels if the aid came in the form of training, equipment or intelligence support, only a third would approve deploying U.S. troops on Mexican soil. Overall, a majority (56%) of Mexicans have a favorable opinion of the United States, with about the same number (53%) convinced that Mexicans who migrate to the U.S. have a better life. Despite this perception, most Mexicans have no interest in migrating north across the border, although the percentage who say they would move to the U.S. if they had the means and opportunity has remained fairly steady since 2009. Details: Washington, DC: Pew Research Center, 2012. 21p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed July 16, 2012 at: http://www.pewglobal.org/files/2012/06/Pew-Global-Attitudes-Project-Mexico-Report-FINAL-Wednesday-June-20-2012.pdf Year: 2012 Country: Mexico URL: http://www.pewglobal.org/files/2012/06/Pew-Global-Attitudes-Project-Mexico-Report-FINAL-Wednesday-June-20-2012.pdf Shelf Number: 125627 Keywords: Drug CartelsDrug PolicyDrug TraffickingDrug ViolenceDrug War (Mexico)Organized Crime |
Author: Helbling, Cadet Erringer Title: Modeling Honduran Illicit Drug Networks Summary: In 2009, U.S. assistance to Honduras was suspended due to a staged coup d’état by the Honduran military. As a result, drug trafficking activity steadily increased in Honduras, as police and military forces within the country became less effective in combating this cartel-related activity. Several other factors, including physical location and limited resources, contribute to Honduras’ growing problem which poses a threat both to its stability and to the United States’ national interests in Honduras. A West Point senior capstone, sponsored by the Engineering Research and Development Center (ERDC) Construction Engineering Research Lab (CERL) and the Center for Nation Reconstruction and Capacity Development (CNRCD) at West Point, is investigating whole of government approaches in support to Civil-Military Operators (CMO) that address the illicit ground trafficking problem. The capstone team is specifically focused in two distinct areas: network flow modeling and system dynamics modeling. Using these approaches, we present a holistic assessment of the complex illicit trafficking networks operating within and throughout Honduras. We argue that by using network flow modeling and system dynamics we can provide insights into interdiction strategies for illicit ground trafficking in Honduras that operate on a holistic scale. Details: West Point, NY: Center for Nation Reconstruction and Capacity Development Department of Systems Engineering, United States Military Academy, 2012. 12p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed July 30, 2012 at: http://www.usma.edu/cnrcd/CNRCD_Library/Modeling%20Illicit%20Networks.pdf Year: 2012 Country: Honduras URL: http://www.usma.edu/cnrcd/CNRCD_Library/Modeling%20Illicit%20Networks.pdf Shelf Number: 125806 Keywords: Drug CartelsDrug TraffickingDrugs (Honduras)Illicit Drugs |
Author: Moreno Gómez, Edgar Title: Staging the War on Drugs: Media and Organised Crime in Mexico Summary: The steep upsurge in the number of drug‐related homicides in Mexico has been matched by an even greater increase in the news coverage of violence and organised crime. However, both journalists and scholars have overlooked how organised crime makes use of the media and vice versa. By drawing on previous research on the relationship between the media, terrorism and public opinion this Working Paper looks into the rise of mass‐mediated organised crime in Mexico. Based on a quantitative analysis of the news coverage of violence and organised crime in three major newspapers as well as a qualitative study of selected events, the paper offers an insight to understand the political ramifications of the news coverage of violence. Even when drug trafficking organisations are not terrorists who seek the publicity of the press to advance a political cause, this paper shows that they have important goals related to the media, the impact of news on public opinion and the consequent influence over policy making. Details: Madrid: Elcano Royal Institute of International and Strategic Studies, 2012. 21p. Source: Internet Resource: Elcano Royal Institute Working Papers No. 8: Accessed August 2, 2012 at: http://www.isn.ethz.ch/isn/Digital-Library/Publications/Detail/?id=147776 Year: 2012 Country: Mexico URL: http://www.isn.ethz.ch/isn/Digital-Library/Publications/Detail/?id=147776 Shelf Number: 125843 Keywords: Drug CartelsDrug TraffickingHomicidesOrganized Crime (Mexico)ViolenceViolent Crime |
Author: Rios, Viridiana Title: To Be or Not To Be a Drug Trafficker: Modeling Criminal Occupational Choices Summary: Violent deaths, kidnapping and extortion have spiked in Mexico’s border towns since 2004. Using a formal model and case studies from Mexico, I argue that such phenomena are partially explained by (a) a change in the politics of organized crime, (b) changes in the composition of illegal labor markets, and (c) the incentives generated at legal labor markets. With democratization, Mexico’s government became unable to keep performing its role as central enforcer of territorial boundaries between drug cartels. As cartels became guardians of their own territories, a need to recruitment new cartel members to form private armies emerged. As a result, an illegal labor market –so far closed to non-blood-related individuals– opened and modified the incentives to join/remain in the legal labor markets. The outcome was the emergence of a new generation of drug employees that (a) disdain old mafia laws, (b) are more violent and (c) are also more prone to take part of other forms of “entrepreneurial” illegal occupations such as kidnapping and extortion. Details: Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, 2010. 22p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed August 6, 2012 at: http://www.gov.harvard.edu/files/Rios_MPSA2010_TobeOrNotToBe.pdf Year: 2010 Country: Mexico URL: http://www.gov.harvard.edu/files/Rios_MPSA2010_TobeOrNotToBe.pdf Shelf Number: 125872 Keywords: Drug CartelsDrug TraffickingDrug Violence (Mexico)ExtortionKidnappingsOrganized Crime |
Author: Issa, Darrell Title: Memorandum: Update of Operation Fast and Furious Summary: Since February 2011, the House Oversight and Government and Government Reform Committee has been conducting a joint investigation with Senate Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Chuck Grassley (R-IA) of reckless conduct in the Justice Department’s Operation Fast and Furious. The committee has held three hearings, conducted twenty-four transcribed interviews with fact witnesses, sent the Department of Justice over fifty letters, and issued the Department of Justice two subpoenas for documents. The Justice Department, however, continues to withhold documents critical to understanding decision making and responsibility in Operation Fast and Furious. This memo explains key events and facts in Operation Fast and Furious that have been uncovered during the congressional investigation; remaining questions that the Justice Department refused to cooperate in helping the Committee answer; the ongoing relevance of these questions; and the extent of the harm created by both Operation Fast and Furious and the Department’s refusal to fully cooperate. The memo also explains issues for Committee Members to consider in making a decision about holding Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress for his Department’s refusal to provide subpoenaed documents. Attached to this memo for review and discussion is a draft version of a contempt report that the Committee may consider at an upcoming business meeting. Details: Washington, DC: United States Congress, 2012. 64p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed August 21, 2012 at http://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Update-on-Fast-and-Furious-with-attachment-FINAL.pdf Year: 2012 Country: United States URL: http://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Update-on-Fast-and-Furious-with-attachment-FINAL.pdf Shelf Number: 126084 Keywords: Border SecurityDrug CartelsGun ControlGun ViolenceGuns (U.S.)Illegal GunsOrganized CrimeTrafficking in Weaspons |
Author: Leiken, Robert S. Title: Mexico's Drug War Summary: Mexico’s President Felipe Calderón staked his presidency on a military campaign against the country’s crime syndicates, deploying half of Mexico’s combat ready troops and tens of thousands of federal police in 18 states. The conflict has caused 50,000 deaths, more than five times what America has lost in Iraq and Afghanistan combined. In Washington, several high officials and political leaders assert that Mexico faces an insurgency that may require American military assistance. But is Mexico’s “war” a low intensity conflict or a high intensity crime scene? Does Mexico face a “criminal insurgency” or a turf war? Does the situation present a national security threat or a law enforcement crisis? Should it be addressed primarily by the military or the police? Should the U.S. be sending military or police advisors? Is the current death toll an inevitable by-product of strategic progress or a signal of failure? Details: Washington, DC: Center for the National Interest, 2012. 34p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed October 25, 2012 at: http://www.cftni.org/42460_CNI_web.pdf Year: 2012 Country: Mexico URL: http://www.cftni.org/42460_CNI_web.pdf Shelf Number: 126798 Keywords: Drug Abuse and CrimeDrug CartelsDrug ControlDrug TraffickingDrug War (Mexico)Organized Crime |
Author: Rogan, Michael G. Title: Is the Narco-violence in Mexico an Insurgency? Summary: Since Mexican President Felipe Calderón declared war on the drug cartels in December 2006, more than 35,000 Mexicans have died due to narco-violence. This monograph examines whether the various Mexican drug trafficking organizations are insurgents or organized criminal elements. Mexican narco-violence and its affiliated gang violence have spread across Mexico’s southern border into Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. Additionally, the narco-violence is already responsible for the deaths of American citizens on both sides of the United States – Mexico border, and the potential for increased spillover violence is a major concern. This monograph argues that the Mexican drug cartels are transnational criminal organizations (TCOs) that pose a national security threat to the regional state actors; however, they are not an insurgency for four reasons. First, none of the cartels have the political aim or capability to overthrow the Mexican government. Second, the various TCOs are competing criminal organizations with approximately 90 percent of the violence being cartel on cartel. For example, the violence in the city of Juárez is largely the result of the fighting between the local Juárez cartel and the Sinaloa cartel for control of one of the primary smuggling routes into the United States. Third, the cartels’ use of violence and coercion has turned popular support against them thus denying them legitimacy. Fourth, although the cartels do control zones of impunity within their areas of influence, the Mexican government has captured, killed, and extradited kingpins from every major TCO. The monograph also examines the violence that has taken place in Colombia as a case study comparison for the current narco-violence in Mexico. The Colombian government battled and defeated both the Medellín and Cali drug cartels in the 1990s. It also has made significant progress against two leftist insurgent groups, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the National Liberation Army (ELN). The Colombian government also reached agreement with the right-wing United Self-Defense Groups of Colombia (AUC) who officially disbanded in April 2006. The primary implication of this monograph is that it is the responsibility of the leadership of the Mexican government, its law enforcement institutions, its judicial system, and the military to defeat the TCOs. The case study of Colombia provides strong evidence of the importance of competent political, judicial, law enforcement, and military leadership. It is also clear that the United States provided valuable assistance, but it was the Colombians’ efforts that reduced violence, secured the population, and marginalized the insurgents. The conclusion of this monograph is that the TCOs have a weak case for being an insurgency due to their lack of legitimacy because violence has been excessively cruel and lacking in purpose in the eyes of the Mexican people. Details: Fort Leavenworth, KS: U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, School of Advanced Military Studies, 2011. 53p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed November 29, 2012 at: http://www.hsdl.org/?view&did=721559 Year: 2011 Country: Mexico URL: http://www.hsdl.org/?view&did=721559 Shelf Number: 127032 Keywords: Drug CartelsDrug Trafficking (Mexico)Gang ViolenceOrganized CrimeViolenceViolent Crime |
Author: ASI Global, LLC Title: Kidnapping for Ransom in Mexico Summary: idnapping for ransom continues to be one of the most serious security risks throughout Mexico, making it one of the countries with the highest number of kidnappings in the world. The majority of kidnappings that take place in Mexico are attributed to small criminal groups that typically operate within a city or municipality rather than large organized groups whose areas of operation span across several cities or states. Some of these gangs are very sophisticated and choose their targets carefully, while others pick up victims of opportunity on the basis of a less selective process. Kidnapping for ransom was once mainly a concern for high-profile Mexican businessmen and their families. While they remain at high risk, organized crime groups now focus on a broader array of targets, including middle-class individuals and even simple merchants or traders. While these gangs operate independently for the most part, many have been linked to Mexican drug cartels. Details: Houston, TX: ASI Global, 2012. 6p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed December 2, 2012 at http://www.asiglobalresponse.com/downloads/Mexico_Analyst_Report_February_2012.pdf Year: 2012 Country: Mexico URL: http://www.asiglobalresponse.com/downloads/Mexico_Analyst_Report_February_2012.pdf Shelf Number: 127106 Keywords: Drug CartelsDrug ViolenceKidnapping (Mexico)Ransom (Mexico)Violent Crime |
Author: U.S. Congress. House. Committee on Homeland Security. Subcommittee on Oversight, Investigations, and Management Title: A Line in the Sand: Countering Crime, Violence and Terror at the Southwest Border. A Majority Report Summary: The first edition of A Line in the Sand, released in 2006, (hereafter “first edition”) exposed the rising threat of Mexican drug cartels and the vulnerabilities of our porous Southwest border. The horrific violence perpetrated by Mexican drug cartels continues to grow and, in many cases documented in this report, spills into the United States. The cartels now have a presence in more than 1,000 U.S. cities and dominate the wholesale illicit drug trade by controlling the movement of most of the foreign-produced drug supply across the Southwest border. This report documents the increased operational control of the cartels inside the United States, their strategy to move illegal drugs, and the bloody turf wars that have taken place between rival cartels, as they struggle to control valuable trafficking corridors. Collectively, Mexican Drug Trafficking Organizations (DTO) maintain firm control of drug and human smuggling routes across the U.S.- Mexico border creating safe entry for anyone willing to pay the price. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security, in its most recent assessment, asserts it can control only 44 percent of our border with Mexico. Terrorism remains a serious threat to the security of the United States. The Congressional Research Service reports that between September 2001 and September 2012, there have been 59 homegrown violent jihadist plots within the United States. Of growing concern and potentially a more violent threat to American citizens is the enhanced ability of Middle East terrorist organizations, aided by their relationships and growing presence in the Western Hemisphere, to exploit the Southwest border to enter the United States undetected. This second edition emphasizes America’s ever-present threat from Middle East terrorist networks, their increasing presence in Latin America, and the growing relationship with Mexican DTOs to exploit paths into the United States. During the period of May 2009 through July 2011, federal law enforcement made 29 arrests for violent terrorist plots against the United States, most with ties to terror networks or Muslim extremist groups in the Middle East. The vast majority of the suspects had either connections to special interest countries, including those deemed as state sponsors of terrorism or were radicalized by terrorist groups such as al Qaeda. American-born al Qaeda Imam Anwar al Awlaki, killed in 2011, was personally responsible for radicalizing scores of Muslim extremists around the world. The list includes American-born U.S. Army Major Nidal Hassan, the accused Fort Hood gunman; “underwear bomber” Umar Faruk Abdulmutallab; and Barry Bujol of Hempstead, TX, convicted of providing material support to al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. In several documented cases, al Awlaki moved his followers to commit “jihad” against the United States. These instances, combined with recent events involving the Qods Forces, the terrorist arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, and Hezbollah, serve as a stark reminder the United States remains in the crosshairs of terrorist organizations and their associates. In May of 2012, the Los Angeles Times reported that intelligence gleaned from the 2011 raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound indicated the world’s most wanted terrorist sought to use operatives with valid Mexican passports who could illegally cross into the United States to conduct terror operations. The story elaborated that bin Laden recognized the importance of al Qaeda operatives blending in with American society but felt that those with U.S. citizenship who then attacked the United States would be violating Islamic law. Of equal concern is the possibility to smuggle materials, including uranium, which can be safely assembled on U.S. soil into a weapon of mass destruction. Further, the standoff with Iran over its nuclear program, and the uncertainty of whether Israel might attack Iran drawing the United States into a confrontation, only heightens concern that Iran or its agents would attempt to exploit the porous Southwest border for retaliation. Confronting the threat at the Southwest border has a broader meaning today than it did six years ago. As this report explains, the United States tightened security at airports and land ports of entry in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, but the U.S.-Mexico border is an obvious weak link in the chain. Criminal elements could migrate down this path of least resistance, and with them the terrorists who continue to seek our destruction. The federal government must meet the challenge to secure America’s unlocked back door from the dual threat of drug cartels and terrorist organizations who are lined up, and working together, to enter. One of the central criticisms made by the 9/11 Commission regarding the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks was a failure of imagination in piecing together the threat picture from al-Qaeda before it was too late. Recognizing and proactively confronting threats has presented a perennial challenge to our country. In the case of the Cuban missile crisis, we failed to deal with the Soviet threat before it resulted in a full-blown crisis that threatened nuclear war. Now we are faced with a new threat in Latin America that comes from the growing collaborations between Iran, Venezuela, Hezbollah and transnational criminal organizations. Similar to the Cuban missile crisis, the evidence to compel action exists; the only question is whether we possess the imagination to connect the dots before another disaster strikes. The intent of this report is to present that evidence, not to incite anxiety, but rather to reinvigorate vigilance towards our Southwest border and beyond to the threats we face in Latin America. Details: Washington, DC: U.S. House of Representatives, 2012. 58p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed December 3, 2012 at: http://homeland.house.gov/sites/homeland.house.gov/files/11-15-12-Line-in-the-Sand.pdf Year: 2012 Country: United States URL: http://homeland.house.gov/sites/homeland.house.gov/files/11-15-12-Line-in-the-Sand.pdf Shelf Number: 127109 Keywords: Border SecurityDomestic TerrorismDrug CartelsDrug Trafficking (Mexico-U.S)Homeland SecurityRadical GroupsTerrorism |
Author: Martin, William Title: Cartels, Corruption, and Carnage in the Calderon Era Summary: While Mexico and the United States have ramped up their efforts to control and perhaps defeat Mexico’s increasingly violent drug cartels, the outcome of these efforts remains in doubt and no panaceas are in sight, but prohibition has once again proved to be a failure, according to a paper from Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy. WILLIAM MARTIN The paper by Rice sociologist William Martin, “Cartels, Corruption and Carnage in the Calderón Era,” traces the origins and growth of Mexican drug cartels and the corruption, failed government policies and gruesome violence that accompanied their rise. Martin is the Baker Institute’s Harry and Hazel Chavanne Senior Fellow in Religion and Public Policy. Details: Houston, TX: James A. Baker II Institute for Public Policy of Rice University, 2013. 20p. Source: Internet Resource: Baker Institute Policy Report: Accessed February 11, 2013 at: http://www.bakerinstitute.org/publications/DRUG-pub-PolicyReport55.pdf Year: 2013 Country: Mexico URL: http://www.bakerinstitute.org/publications/DRUG-pub-PolicyReport55.pdf Shelf Number: 127563 Keywords: Drug CartelsDrug Law EnforcementDrug Trafficking (Mexico)Organized Crime |
Author: Title: Peña Nieto’s Challenge: Criminal Cartels and Rule of Law in Mexico Summary: After years of intense, cartel-related bloodshed that has claimed tens of thousands of lives and shaken Mexico, new President Enrique Peña Nieto is promising to reduce the murder rate. The security plan he introduced with the backing of the three biggest parties gives Mexico a window of opportunity to build institutions that can produce long-term peace and cut impunity rates. But he faces many challenges. The cartels have thousands of gunmen and have morphed into diversified crime groups that not only traffic drugs, but also conduct mass kidnappings, oversee extortion rackets and steal from the state oil industry. The military still fights them in much of the country on controversial missions too often ending in shooting rather than prosecutions. If Peña Nieto does not build an effective police and justice system, the violence may continue or worsen. But major institutional improvements and more efficient, comprehensive social programs could mean real hope for sustainable peace and justice. The development of cartels into murder squads fighting to control territory with military-grade weapons challenges the Mexican state’s monopoly on the use of force in some regions. The brutality of their crimes undermines civilian trust in the government’s capacity to protect them, and the corruption of drug money damages belief in key institutions. Cartels challenge the fundamental nature of the state, therefore, not by threatening to capture it, but by damaging and weakening it. The military fight-back has at times only further eroded the trust in government by inflicting serious human rights abuses. Some frustrated communities have formed armed “selfdefence” groups against the cartels. Whatever the intent, these also degrade the rule of law. There has been fierce discussion about how to legally define the fighting. The violence has been described as a low-intensity armed conflict, a kind of war, because of the number of deaths and type of weapons used. The criminal groups have been described as everything from gangs, drug cartels and transnational criminal organisations, to paramilitaries and terrorists. The Mexican government, much of the international community and many analysts reject the idea there is anything other than a serious criminal threat, even though those criminal groups use military and, at times, vicious terror tactics. The army and marines, too, thrown into the breach with limited police training and without efficient policing methods, have often used intense and lethal force to fight the groups, killing more than 2,300 alleged criminals in a five-year period. Within the grey world of fighting between rival cartels and security forces, there is much confusion as to who the victims of the violence are, and who killed them or made them disappear. Estimates of the total who have died in connection with the fighting over the last six years range from 47,000 to more than 70,000, in addition to thousands of disappearances. Cartel gunmen often dress in military uniforms and include corrupt police in their ranks, so people are unsure if they are facing criminals or troops. A victims movement is demanding justice and security. Mexico has also lost hundreds of police and army officers, mayors, political candidates, judges, journalists and human rights defenders to the bloodshed that is taking a toll on its democratic institutions. Details: Brussels, Belgium: International Crisis Group, 2013. 52p. Source: Internet Resource: Latin America Report No. 48: Accessed May 13, 2013 at: http://www.crisisgroup.org/~/media/Files/latin-america/mexico/048-pena-nietos-challenge-criminal-cartels-and-rule-of-law-in-mexico.pdf Year: 2013 Country: Mexico URL: http://www.crisisgroup.org/~/media/Files/latin-america/mexico/048-pena-nietos-challenge-criminal-cartels-and-rule-of-law-in-mexico.pdf Shelf Number: 128724 Keywords: Drug - Related Violence (Mexico)Drug CartelsDrug TraffickingHomicidesKidnappingsOrganized CrimeViolent Crimes |
Author: Wittens, Stefan Title: Drug Related Violence in Mexico: A literature study from 1985-2011 Summary: The explanations for the escalation of drug-related violence that are found in the literature are diverse as well as numerous. Among these explanations two direct causations dominate: first, Mexican government policy and strategy, primarily since Calderon took office in 2006 and to lesser extent during the Fox administration and second, the competition between and within the Drug Trafficking Organizations (DTOs) since 2000. However, when these explanations are compared to the empirical data, the escalation of violence primarily coincides with the policy of Calderon and there are no elevated levels of violence since 2000, which reduces the validity of inter and intra-cartel violence within the timeframe of the literature. The empirical data suggests that since 2004 drug-related violence started rising slightly, with a clear break and an escalation of homicides since 2007. This also adds more weight to two more explanations: first the diversification of DTO modus operandi, a process that has essentially started with the arrival of the Zetas and second, with a decline in demand for Mexican drugs in America since 2006. Furthermore, the findings from the literature study seem best explained by the principle of producer-product, as the direct causality between policy, competition and drug-related violence could hardly exist without the existing environment. Pre-conditions like weak institutional capacity, corruption, availability of weapons, poverty, geography, culture and others are seen as exacerbates and contributors to the escalating levels of drug-related violence. Details: Utrecht: Utrecht University, 2012. 105p. Source: Internet Resource: Thesis: Accessed June 1, 2013 at: http://igitur-archive.library.uu.nl/student-theses/2012-1126-200608/UUindex.html Year: 2012 Country: Mexico URL: http://igitur-archive.library.uu.nl/student-theses/2012-1126-200608/UUindex.html Shelf Number: 128891 Keywords: Drug CartelsDrug TraffickingDrug-Related Violence (Mexico)HomicidesOrganized CrimeZetas |
Author: Ayuso, Tomas Title: Central America : The Downward Spiral of the Northern Triangle Summary: Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador have entered a perilously new era in their history. Caught between the rise in criminal violence domestically and the presence of the international drug trade, the so-called Northern Triangle of Central America is fighting for its survival. A bleak economic landscape has fostered youth gangs known as maras and domestic smugglers to build a relationship with the great drug syndicates of Mexico and South America with impunity permitted by a corrupt police and government. How have the cartels exerted such dominance over Central America with most of the US bound cocaine now going through these countries? And what can be done to regain control of an isthmus in free fall? Details: NORIA: Network of Researchers in International Affairs (www.noria-research.com), 2012. 17p. Source: Internet Resource: Research Report: Accessed July 11, 2013 at: http://www.noria-research.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Tomas-pour-PDF.pdf Year: 2012 Country: Central America URL: http://www.noria-research.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Tomas-pour-PDF.pdf Shelf Number: 129376 Keywords: Drug CartelsDrug Trafficking (Honduras, Guatemala, El SalvadorDrug-Related ViolenceGangsOrganized CrimeViolent Crime |
Author: Sullivan, John P. Title: From Drug Wars to Criminal Insurgency: Mexican Cartels, Criminal Enclaves and Criminal Insurgency in Mexico and Central America. Implications for Global Security Summary: Transnational organized crime is a pressing global security issue. Mexico is currently embroiled in a protracted drug war. Mexican drug cartels and allied gangs (actually poly-crime organizations) are currently challenging states and sub-state polities (in Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador and beyond) to capitalize on lucrative illicit global economic markets. As a consequence of the exploitation of these global economic flows, the cartels are waging war on each other and state institutions to gain control of the illicit economy. Essentially, they are waging a 'criminal insurgency' against the current configuration of states. As such, they are becoming political, as well as economic actors. This presentation examines the dynamics of this controversial proposition. The control of territorial space -- ranging from 'failed communities' to 'failed regions' -- will be examined. The presentation will examine the exploitation of weak governance and areas (known as 'lawless zones,' 'ungoverned spaces,' 'other governed spaces,' or 'zones of impunity') where state challengers have created parallel or dual sovereignty, or 'criminal enclaves' in a neo-feudal political arrangement. The use of instrumental violence, corruption, information operations (including attacks on journalists), street taxation, and provision of social goods in a utilitarian fashion will be discussed. Finally, the dynamics of the transition of cartels and gangs into 'accidental guerrillas' and 'social bandits' will be explored through the lens of 'third generation gang' theory and 'power-counter power' relationships. This presentation will serve as a starting point for assessing the threat to security from transnational organized crime through lessons from the Mexican cartels. Details: Paris: Fondation Maison des sciences de l’homme, 2012. 20p. Source: Internet Resource: Working Papers Series, No. 9: Accessed July 16, 2013 at: http://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-00694083/ Year: 2012 Country: Central America URL: http://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-00694083/ Shelf Number: 129414 Keywords: Drug CartelsDrug TraffickingDrug-Related Violence (Mexico, Central America)Gang ViolenceOrganized Crime |
Author: Llorente, Maria Victoria Title: One Goal, Two Struggles: Confronting Crime and Violence in Mexico and Colombia Summary: Since the mid-2000s, violence related to drug trafficking and other transnational crime has increased exponentially in Mexico. By the end of the decade the public began to seriously doubt the government's strategy and its ability to guarantee public safety. The nature and intensity of violence in Mexico brought forth memories of the 1980s and '90s in Colombia, when the country was besieged by the Medellin and Cali drug cartels. Over the course of more than a decade, Colombia's security situation has improved dramatically; it has become an "exporter" of security expertise and has trained thousands of military and police personnel in Mexico, Central and South America, and the Caribbean as well as around the world. What aspects of Colombia's strategy and tactics for fighting organized crime in its own territory offer useful lessons for Mexico? What might Colombia's steps and missteps offer by way of example or counter-example? What is unique about each case such that comparisons are misleading? What do current security challenges in Colombia suggest about the threat posed by organized crime more generally? In One Goal, Two Struggles: Confronting Crime and Violence in Mexico and Colombia, international experts address the utility of comparing Colombia and Mexico's experiences and strategy for combatting organized crime and violence more generally. Details: Washington, DC: Wilson Center, 2014. 126p. Source: Internet Resource: Woodrow Wilson Center Reports on the Americas - #32: http://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/Colombia_Mexico_Final.pdf Year: 2014 Country: Central America URL: http://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/Colombia_Mexico_Final.pdf Shelf Number: 132052 Keywords: Drug CartelsDrug TraffickingGang ViolenceOrganized CrimeTransnational CrimeViolenceViolent Crime |
Author: Title: Tunisia's Borders: Jihadism and Contraband Summary: Tunisia is embroiled in recurrent political crises whose origins in security concerns are ever more evident. While still of low-intensity, jihadi attacks are increasing at an alarming rate, fuelling the rumour mill, weakening the state and further polarising the political scene. The government coalition, dominated by the Islamist An-Nahda, and the secular opposition trade accusations, politicising questions of national security rather than addressing them. Meanwhile, the gap widens between a Tunisia of the borders - porous, rebellious, a focal point of jihadism and contraband and a Tunisia of the capital and coast that is concerned with the vulnerability of a hinterland it fears more than it understands. Beyond engaging in necessary efforts to resolve the immediate political crisis, actors from across the national spectrum should implement security but also socio-economic measures to reduce the permeability of the country's borders. The security vacuum that followed the 2010-2011 uprising against Ben Ali's regime - as well as the chaos generated by the war in Libya - largely explains the worrying increase in cross-border trafficking. Although contraband long has been the sole source of income for numerous residents of border provinces, the introduction of dangerous and lucrative goods is a source of heightened concern. Hard drugs as well as (for now) relatively small quantities of firearms and explosives regularly enter the country from Libya. Likewise, the northern half of the Tunisian-Algerian border is becoming an area of growing trafficking of cannabis and small arms. These trends are both increasing the jihadis' disruptive potential and intensifying corruption of border authorities. One ought neither exaggerate nor politicise these developments. Notably, and against conventional wisdom, military equipment from Libya has not overwhelmed the country. But nor should the threat be underestimated. The war in Libya undoubtedly has had security repercussions and armed groups in border areas have conducted attacks against members of the National Guard, army and police, posing a significant security challenge that the return of Tunisian fighters from Syria has amplified. By the same token, the aftermath of the Tunisian uprising and of the Libyan war has provoked a reorganisation of contraband cartels (commercial at the Algerian border, tribal at the Libyan border), thereby weakening state control and paving the way for far more dangerous types of trafficking. Added to the mix is the fact that criminality and radical Islamism gradually are intermingling in the suburbs of major cities and in poor peripheral villages. Over time, the emergence of a so-called islamo-gangsterism could contribute to the rise of groups blending jihadism and organised crime within contraband networks operating at the borders - or, worse, to active cooperation between cartels and jihadis. Addressing border problems clearly requires beefing up security measures but these will not suffice on their own. Even with the most technically sophisticated border control mechanisms, residents of these areas - often organised in networks and counting among the country's poorest - will remain capable of enabling or preventing the transfer of goods and people. The more they feel economically and socially frustrated, the less they will be inclined to protect the country's territorial integrity in exchange for relative tolerance toward their own contraband activities. Weapons and drug trafficking as well as the movement of jihadi militants are thus hostage to informal negotiations between the informal economy's barons and state representatives. Since the fall of Ben Ali's regime, such understandings have been harder to reach. The result has been to dilute the effectiveness of security measures and diminish the availability of human intelligence that is critical to counter terrorist or jihadi threats. In an uncertain domestic and regional context, restoring trust among political parties, the state and residents of border areas is thus as crucial as intensifying military control in the most porous areas. In the long term, only minimal consensus among political forces on the country's future can enable a truly effective approach to the border question. On this front, at the time of writing, an end to the political crisis seems distant: discussions regarding formation of a new government; finalising a new constitution and new electoral law; and appointing a new electoral commission are faltering. Without a resolution of these issues, polarisation is likely to increase and the security situation to worsen, each camp accusing the other of exploiting terrorism for political ends. Overcoming the crisis of trust between the governing coalition and the opposition is thus essential to breaking this vicious cycle. Yet the current political impasse should not rule out some immediate progress on the security front. Working together to reinforce border controls, improving relations between the central authorities and residents of border areas as well as improving relations among Maghreb states: these are all tasks that only can be fully carried out once underlying political conflicts have been resolved but that, in the meantime, Tunisian actors can ill-afford to ignore or neglect. Details: Brussels: International Crisis Group, 2013. 48p. Source: Internet Resource: Middle East and North Africa Report N148: Accessed June 16, 2014 at: http://www.crisisgroup.org/~/media/Files/Middle%20East%20North%20Africa/North%20Africa/Tunisia/148-tunisias-borders-jihadism-and-contraband-english.pdf Year: 2013 Country: Tunisia URL: http://www.crisisgroup.org/~/media/Files/Middle%20East%20North%20Africa/North%20Africa/Tunisia/148-tunisias-borders-jihadism-and-contraband-english.pdf Shelf Number: 132473 Keywords: Border SecurityContrabandDrug CartelsDrug TraffickingFirearms TraffickingJihadismOrganized Crime |
Author: Owens, Kaitlin Title: Honduras: Journalism in the Shadow of Impunity Summary: This report examines the surge in violence directed against journalists following the ouster of President Jose Manuel Zelaya in June 2009. Since then at least 32 Honduran journalists have been killed and many more continue to work in a climate of fear and self-censorship. Reporters who cover corruption and organized crime are routinely targeted for their work and attacked or killed with almost complete impunity. The sources of the violence against journalists are varied. Transnational drug cartels have infiltrated the country so effectively that the present crisis in Honduras cannot be understood in isolation from its Central American neighbours. That said, it is also clear that the absence of reliable institutions has allowed the violence to escalate far more rapidly than many anticipated. Much of the violence is produced by the state itself, perhaps most significantly by a corrupt police force. In a special report on police criminality in Honduras, the Tegucigalpa-based Violence Observatory (Observatorio de Violencia) found that between January 2011 and November 2012 police officers killed 149 civilians, approximately six per month. The taint of corruption and a culture of impunity have undermined trust among state agencies and public confidence in key institutions. Public distrust of the police is so great that crimes are rarely reported. Moreover, due to widespread corruption and inefficiency among the force, only an estimated 20 per cent of crime is reported, and of that less than four per cent gets investigated. According to the State's own statistics, less than one per cent of all crime in Honduras is subject to a police investigation. Procedural flaws are evident throughout the system. Police often say an investigation is underway when there is none; the office of the Special Prosecutor for Human Rights (Fiscala Especial de Derechos Humanos) does not have the jurisdiction to try those responsible for the murders of journalists, and lacks resources to conduct even the most basic investigations into other human rights violations. On the other hand, while some legal initiatives are under-resourced, there is also a proliferation of competing agencies that notionally address the same problem. This has created a situation in which institutional responsibility has been so widely diffused that no one is ultimately accountable for the high level of impunity. With current levels of funding, the office of the Special Prosecutor for Human Rights, which was nominally responsible for over 7,000 investigations in 2012, can only investigate a small percentage of these cases each year. While the office continues to operate with a serious shortage of funds, the Honduran state is able to argue that it has made progress in addressing human rights violations through the establishment of a Special Prosecutor for Human Rights. Given these crises, this report finds that the Honduran judiciary faces significant challenges in establishing an independent legal culture capable of ensuring accountability for human rights abuses. Furthermore, legal mechanisms to protect journalists are needlessly complicated and often confusing. Even international mechanisms such as the precautionary measures issued by the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights (iachr) are poorly understood by local police and, at least as currently implemented, offer little real protection. Deep divisions among the journalists themselves hinder the fight against impunity. A striking absence of camaraderie within the profession has impaired its ability to collaborate effectively in protesting violence against journalists and in promoting protection mechanisms. Mutual suspicion is evident in many journalists' scepticism towards the official Association of Journalists of Honduras (Colegio de Periodistas de Honduras - cph) - an institution that has noticeably failed in its legislative mandate to "promote solidarity and mutual assistance among the media." This failure has meant that there is no united front pressing for greater accountability and an end to the violence. The coup that unseated President Zelaya in 2009 brought these problems into the spotlight, but the roots of the crisis lie further back in Honduras' history, notably in its failure during the demilitarization process that began in the 1980s to hold those who had committed serious human rights violations accountable for their actions. A legacy of failed reforms left the state incapable of dealing with rights violations that took place during and after the 2009 coup. As a result, the recent wave of murderous violence has been met with a familiar mixture of inadequate resources, bureaucratic ineptitude, blame-shifting and denial. The coup interrupted the demilitarization of Honduras. One human rights worker we interviewed spoke of the return of a security-state mindset in which peaceful dissent is often met with reflexive violence. Others noted that the re-emergence of the security state had been justified - as in Colombia and Mexico - as an antidote to pervasive corruption and organized crime. But the real lesson to be drawn from the use of force to compensate for the failures of transitional justice is that state actors no longer need to fear being held to account for their actions. As Bertha Oliva, co-ordinator of the Committee of Relatives of the Detained and Disappeared in Honduras (Comite de Familiares de Detenidos Desaparecidos en Honduras - cofadeh) put it: "When we allow impunity for human rights violations, we see the crimes of the past translated into the crimes of the future." Details: Toronto: PEN Canada; London: PEN International, 2014. 48p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed July 7, 2014 at: http://www.pen-international.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Honduras-Journalism-in-the-Shadow-of-Impunity1.pdf Year: 2014 Country: Honduras URL: http://www.pen-international.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Honduras-Journalism-in-the-Shadow-of-Impunity1.pdf Shelf Number: 132630 Keywords: Drug CartelsHomicidesHuman Rights AbusesJournalistsOrganized CrimePolitical CorruptionViolence Violence Crime |
Author: Noriega, Roger F. Title: Honduras Under Siege Summary: As stepped-up counternarcotics policies in Colombia and Mexico have increased pressure on regional drug trafficking networks, organized crime syndicates have relocated operations to Central America, where law enforcement agencies and institutions are ill-equipped to withstand the onslaught. These multibillion-dollar gangs are making common cause with some local politicians who are following a playbook honed by Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. The result in Venezuela was the birth of a narco-state, and similar dramas are playing out in Central America. Like Chavez, caudillos are using the democratic process to seek power, weaken institutions, and undermine the rule of law - generating turmoil that accommodates narco-trafficking. Making matters worse for Honduras is that left-wing activists abroad, in support of ousted president and Chavez acolyte Manuel Zelaya, are waging a very public campaign of outlandish claims seeking to block any US assistance to help the Honduran government resist the drug cartels. It is imperative that US policymakers vigorously support democracy, the rule of law, and antidrug programs in Honduras. Details: Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, 2013. 9p. Source: Internet Resource: Latin American Outlook No. 3: Accessed August 4, 2014 at: http://www.aei.org/files/2013/09/30/-honduras-under-siege_090033609069.pdf Year: 2013 Country: Honduras URL: http://www.aei.org/files/2013/09/30/-honduras-under-siege_090033609069.pdf Shelf Number: 132883 Keywords: Drug CartelsDrug TraffickingGangsOrganized Crime (Honduras)Violent Crime |
Author: Paul, Christopher Title: Mexico Is Not Colombia: Alternative Historical Analogies for Responding to the Challenge of Violent Drug-Trafficking Organizations Summary: Drug-related violence has become a very serious problem in Mexico. Of particular concern to U.S. policymakers, violent drug-trafficking organizations produce, transship, and deliver tens of billions of dollars' worth of narcotics into the United States annually. The activities of these organizations are not confined to drug trafficking; they extend to such criminal enterprises as human trafficking, weapon trafficking, kidnapping, money laundering, extortion, bribery, and racketeering. Then, there is the violence: Recent incidents have included assassinations of politicians and judges; attacks against rival organizations, associated civilians, and the police and other security forces; and seemingly random violence against innocent bystanders. Despite the scope of the threat to Mexico's security, these groups are not well understood, and optimal strategies to combat them have not been identified. Comparison between Mexico and Colombia is a tempting and frequently made analogy and source for policy recommendations. A review of these approaches, combined with a series of historical case studies, offers a more thorough comparative assessment. Regions around the world have faced similar challenges and may hold lessons for Mexico. One point is clear, however: Mexico is not Colombia. In fact, Mexico is not particularly like any other historical case characterized by "warlordism," resource insurgency, ungoverned spaces, and organized crime. Despite the lack of a perfectly analogous case, Mexico stands to benefit from historical lessons and efforts that were correlated with the greatest improvements in countries facing similar challenges. A companion volume presents in-depth profiles of each of these conflicts. Details: Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2014. 136p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed August 4, 2014 at: http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RR500/RR548z1/RAND_RR548z1.pdf Year: 2014 Country: Mexico URL: http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RR500/RR548z1/RAND_RR548z1.pdf Shelf Number: 132898 Keywords: Drug CartelsDrug Trafficking (Mexico)Drug-Related ViolenceHomicidesOrganized CrimeViolenceViolent Crime |
Author: Paul, Christopher Title: Mexico Is Not Colombia: Alternative Historical Analogies for Responding to the Challenge of Violent Drug-Trafficking Organizations. Supporting Case Studies Summary: Drug-related violence has become a very serious problem in Mexico. Of particular concern to U.S. policymakers, violent drug-trafficking organizations produce, transship, and deliver tens of billions of dollars' worth of narcotics into the United States annually. The activities of these organizations are not confined to drug trafficking; they extend to such criminal enterprises as human trafficking, weapon trafficking, kidnapping, money laundering, extortion, bribery, and racketeering. Then, there is the violence: Recent incidents have included assassinations of politicians and judges; attacks against rival organizations, associated civilians, and the police and other security forces; and seemingly random violence against innocent bystanders. Despite the scope of the threat to Mexico's security, these groups are not well understood, and optimal strategies to combat them have not been identified. Comparison between Mexico and Colombia is a tempting and frequently made analogy and source for policy recommendations. A series of historical case studies offers a foundation for a more thorough comparative assessment. Regions around the world have faced similar challenges and may hold lessons for Mexico. One point is clear, however: Mexico is not Colombia. As the historical record shows, Mexico is not particularly like any other case characterized by "warlordism," resource insurgency, ungoverned spaces, and organized crime. Despite the lack of a perfectly analogous case, Mexico stands to benefit from historical lessons and efforts that were correlated with the greatest improvements in countries facing similar challenges. A companion volume describes the study's approach to assessing each historical case and presents findings from the overall analyses. Details: Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2014. 285p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed August 6, 2014 at: http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RR500/RR548z2/RAND_RR548z2.pdf Year: 2014 Country: Mexico URL: http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RR500/RR548z2/RAND_RR548z2.pdf Shelf Number: 132899 Keywords: Drug CartelsDrug Trafficking (Mexico) Drug-Related Violence Homicides Organized Crime Violence Violent Crime |
Author: Damnjanovic, Jelena Title: Organised Crime and State Sovereignty: The conflict between the Mexican state and drug cartels 2006-2011 Summary: Since December 2006, the government of Mexico has been embroiled in a battle against numerous criminal organisations seeking to control territory and assure continued flow of revenue through the production and trafficking of drugs. Although this struggle has been well documented in Mexican and international media, it has not received as much scholarly attention due to the difficulties involved with assessing current phenomena. This thesis seeks to play a small part in filling that gap by exploring how and why the drug cartels in Mexico have proved a challenge to Mexico's domestic sovereignty and the state's capacity to have monopoly over the use of force, maintain effective and legitimate law enforcement, and to exercise control over its territory. The thesis will explain how the violence, corruption and subversion of the state's authority have resulted in a shift of the dynamics of power from state agents to criminal organizations in Mexico. It also suggests implications for domestic sovereignty in regions experiencing similar problems with organized crime, perhaps pointing to a wider trend in international politics in the era of globalization. Details: Sydney: University of Sydney, Department of Government and International Relations, 2011. 88p. Source: Internet Resource: Thesis: Accessed August 11, 2014 at: http://ses.library.usyd.edu.au/handle/2123/8273 Year: 2011 Country: Mexico URL: http://ses.library.usyd.edu.au/handle/2123/8273 Shelf Number: 132974 Keywords: Drug CartelsDrug Trafficking (Mexico)Drug-Related ViolenceOrganized CrimePolitical Corruption |
Author: Bunker, Robert J. Title: Cartel Car Bombings in Mexico Summary: Contemporary Mexican cartel use of car bombs began in mid-July 2010 and has since escalated. Given the proximity to the United States, some literally within miles of the border, the car bombings, with about 20 incidents identified over the last 2 1/2 years, should be of interest to local, state, and federal U.S. law enforcement, the U.S. Army, and other governmental institutions which are providing increasing support to Mexican federal agencies. An historical overview and analysis of cartel car bomb use in Mexico provides context, insights, and lessons learned stemming from the Medellin and Cali cartel car bombing campaigns. In order to generate insights into future cartel car bombings in Mexico, the identification of such potentials offers a glimpse into cartel "enemy intent," a possible form of actionable strategic intelligence. For Mexico, steady and both slowly and quickly increasing car bomb use trajectories may exist. The prognosis for decreasing car bomb deployment appears unlikely. If cartel car bombs were to be deployed on U.S. soil or against U.S. personnel and facilities in Mexico, such as our consulates, we could expect that a pattern of indications and warnings (I&W) would be evident prior to such an attack(s). In that case, I&W would be drawn from precursor events such as grenade and improvised explosive device (IED) attacks (or attempted attacks) on our personnel and facilities and on evolving cartel car bomb deployment patterns in Mexico. The authors conclude with initial recommendations for U.S. Army and defense community support to the military and the federal, state, and local police agencies of the Mexican state, and the various U.S. federal, state, and local police agencies operating near the U.S.-Mexican border. The extent of support in intelligence, organization, training, and equipment is highlighted, as well as the extent that these forms of support should be implemented to counter cartel vehicle-borne IEDs and overall cartel threats. Details: Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, 2013. 76p. Source: Internet Resource: Letort Papers: Accessed August 21, 2014 at: http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/PUB1166.pdf Year: 2013 Country: Mexico URL: http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/PUB1166.pdf Shelf Number: 130006 Keywords: Criminal NetworksDrug CartelsDrug TraffickingDrug-Related ViolenceOrganized Crime (Mexico) |
Author: Castillo, Juan Camilo Title: Illegal drug markets and violence in Mexico: The causes beyond Calderon Summary: This paper estimates the effect that drug trafficking has had on violence in Mexico in recent years. We use two different proxies for drug trafficking activities at the municipal level: a measure of cartels' presence and the value of cocaine seizures, and instrument them using simple geographic features of each municipality interacted with cocaine seizures in Colombia. In order to motivate our empirical exercise, we propose a simple model of the war on drugs that captures the essence of our identification strategy (e.g., the interrelationship between aggregate supply shocks, the size of illegal drug markets and violence). Our estimations indicate that the rise in drug trafficking in recent years in Mexico has generated a significant and sizable increase in the levels of violence. The effects are especially large for violence generated by clashes between drug cartels. We also find that this effect is mainly driven by municipalities with presence of two or more cartels. Although we find that aggregate supply shocks originated in drug seizures in Colombia have always had an impact on drug trafficking in Mexico, violence generated by drug trafficking has been much greater since president Calderon took office in December 2006. Our results show that government crackdowns on drug cartels might not be the only explanation behind the rise of illegal drug trafficking and violence observed in the last six years in Mexico. Successful interdiction policies implemented in Colombia since 2006 have also played a major role in explaining the worsening of the situation observed in Mexico during Calderon's sexenium. Details: Colombia: Economics Department, Universidad de los Andes, 2013. 50p. Source: Internet Resource: accessed April 9, 2015 at: http://cddrl.fsi.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/143.illegaldrug.pdf Year: 2013 Country: Mexico URL: http://cddrl.fsi.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/143.illegaldrug.pdf Shelf Number: 135206 Keywords: Drug CartelsDrug Trafficking Drug War (Mexico) Drug-Related Violence Drugs and Crime Illegal Markets War on Drugs |
Author: Lessing, Benjamin Title: The Logic of Violence in Drug Wars: Cartel-State Conflict in Mexico, Brazil and Colombia Summary: Why have militarized interventions to curtail violence by drug cartels had wildly divergent results? In the past six years, state crackdowns drove a nine-fold increase in cartel-state violence in Mexico, versus a two-thirds decrease in Brazil. Prevailing analyses of drug wars as a criminal subtype of insurgency provide little traction, because they elide differences in rebels' and cartels' aims. Cartels, I argue, fight states not to conquer territory or political control, but to coerce state actors and influence policy outcomes. The empirically predominant channel is violent corruption-threatening enforcers while negotiating bribes. A formal model reveals that greater state repression raises bribe prices, leading cartels to fight back whenever (a) corruption is sufficiently rampant, and (b) repression is insufficiently conditional on cartels' use of violence. Variation in conditionality helps explain observed outcomes: switching to conditional repression pushed Brazilian cartels into nonviolent strategies, while Mexico's war "without distinctions" inadvertently made fighting advantageous. Details: Stanford, CA: Center on Democracy, Development, Stanford University, 2013. 57p. Source: Internet Resource: CDDRL Working Paper no. 145: Accessed April 20, 2015 at: http://cddrl.fsi.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/145.Violent_Corruption_CDDRL_Working_Paper.pdf Year: 2013 Country: Latin America URL: http://cddrl.fsi.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/145.Violent_Corruption_CDDRL_Working_Paper.pdf Shelf Number: 135319 Keywords: Drug CartelsDrug PolicyDrug TraffickingDrug WarsDrug-Related Violence |
Author: Kasang, Nicholas Title: Socio-spatial violence prevention: Inhibiting violence in Caracas, Venezuela through spatial planning Summary: Contemporary urban growth in many cities in Latin American and Africa has been accompanied by unprecedented levels of urban violence. Latin America epitomizes this trend as three of the world's most dangerous cities, Ciudad Juarez, San Pedro Sula, and Caracas, are located within this region (JACOME; GRATIUS, 2011, p. 2). Of these three, Caracas is notable because its exorbitant homicide rate cannot be explicitly attributed to the illicit drug trade-cartel wars that consume Mexico, nor is it represented by the civil conflict-gang violence that afflicts Central America. Moreover, the Venezuelan context is further distinguished as inequality, which is consistently cited as the primary catalyst for the emergence of everyday reactionary violence, is not overtly characteristic of the contemporary situation. Rather, caraqueo insecurity has largely been attributed to the exacerbation of social factors that perpetuate violence as "(...) an end in itself or a [mechanism] to injure/ eliminate another person in order to resolve an interpersonal conflict (...)" (SANJUAN, 2002, p. 95). Based on this reality, this work proposes the inclusion of socio-spatial interventions into contemporary prevention initiatives. Spatial interventions have shown a "(...) significant capacity to prevent the occurrence of violence in areas that are either totally or partially excluded from economic development and larger society (...) (DIAZ; MELLER, 2012, p. 23). Implications of this work have the capacity to augment predominantly technical violence prevention precedent and enhance knowledge on alternative mechanisms to prevent insecurity. This study employs a comprehensive literature review in conjunction with data analyses in the development of a spatial proposal for Caracas. Details: urbe. Revista Brasileira de Gestao Urbana (Brazilian Journal of Urban Management), 2014. 17p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed April 29, 2015 at: http://www.scielo.br/pdf/urbe/v6n2/07.pdf Year: 2014 Country: Venezuela URL: http://www.scielo.br/pdf/urbe/v6n2/07.pdf Shelf Number: 135421 Keywords: Drug CartelsDrug TraffickingHomicidesUrban AreasUrban Violence (Brazil)Violent Crime |
Author: Dube, Arindrajit Title: Cross-Border Spillover: U.S. Gun Laws and Violence in Mexico Summary: To what extent, and under what conditions, does access to arms fuel violent crime? To answer this question, we exploit a unique natural experiment: the 2004 expiration of the U.S. Federal Assault Weapons Ban exerted a spillover on gun supply in Mexican municipios near Texas, Arizona and New Mexico, but not near California, which retained a pre-existing state-level ban. We find first that Mexican municipios located closer to the non-California border states experienced differential increases in homicides, gun-related homicides and crime gun seizures in the post-2004 period. Second, the magnitude of this effect is contingent on political factors related to Mexico's democratic transition. Killings increased substantially more in municipios where local elections had become more competitive prior to 2004, with the largest differentials emerging in high narco-trafficking areas. Our findings are consistent with the notion that political competition undermined informal agreements between drug cartels and entrenched local governments, highlighting the role of political instability in mediating the gun-crime relationship. Details: Bonn: Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), 2012. 69p. Source: Internet Resource: IZA Discussion Paper No. 7098: Accessed April 30, 2015 at: http://ftp.iza.org/dp7098.pdf Year: 2012 Country: Mexico URL: http://ftp.iza.org/dp7098.pdf Shelf Number: 135425 Keywords: Assault WeaponsDrug CartelsDrug TraffickingGun ControlGun-Related ViolenceHomicidesViolent Crime |
Author: Farah, Douglas Title: Central America's Northern Triangle: A Time of Turmoil and Transition Summary: Transnational Organized Crime Groups with ties to Mexican drug cartels tip the balance of power in Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador from fragile and corrupt states to potentially criminalized states. Details: IBI Consultants LLC, 2013.46p. Source: Accessed May 26, 2015 at: http://www.ibiconsultants.net/_pdf/turmoil-and-transition-2.pdf Year: 2013 Country: Central America URL: http://www.ibiconsultants.net/_pdf/turmoil-and-transition-2.pdf Shelf Number: 129685 Keywords: Drug CartelsDrug TraffickingOrganized Crime |
Author: Livingston, Andrew Title: A Reputation for Violence: Fractionalization's Impact on Criminal Reputation and the Mexican State Summary: Friday night, July 8th 2011 - gunmen aligned with Los Zetas smash their way into a bar in the Northern Mexican city of Monterrey. They open fire and kill 20 people while wounding even more. The next morning, in an unrelated incident, police find 10 people shot and left to rot in an abandoned SUV. In just 24 short hours, 30 people are added to the ever-expanding casualty count. Horrific days of violence like these have become more frequent over the past few years. The Government of Mexico responds to violent organized criminal groups (OCGs) by increasing enforcement and the OCGs retaliate with brazen acts of aggressive defiance. The 15,000 that died in 2010 alone, elevates the death toll from the Mexican Drug War to around 35,000 since 2007. These huge numbers have a way of desensitizing us to the reality of death. That cannot be allowed to happen. On average, 14 sons, daughters, husbands, wives, friends and neighbors are murdered every day in the violent border city of Juarez. Fourteen died yesterday and more will perish today, tomorrow, and the day after. In an effort to reduce violence and the power of criminal organizations, US and Mexican strategy has focused primarily on removing high valued targets within an OCG's top leadership in order to fracture the organization's power structure. Mexican President Felipe Calderon believes breaking up the gangs will turn a criminal problem that threatens Mexican national security into a regional safety issue. But in the short run fragmentation causes spikes in violence because conflicts arise within and between criminal organizations. After the pre-existing power relationship disintegrates, leaders of criminal groups attempt to increase their market share by muscling out the competition. The United States Drug Enforcement Administration views this escalation in violence as "a sign of success in the fight against drugs" an instance of "caged animals, attacking one another." But this view may be oversimplified. Organized crime groups are horizontally structured for-profit criminal businesses that operate to maximize revenues gained from illegal activities. They typically engage in violence only when it serves a specific business purpose. The strategy of continually breaking apart criminal organizations has kept the balance of power from reaching a stable equilibrium. These uncertain conditions incentivize OCGs to forcefully take advantage of their rivals' unstable control over market share. But physical violence is only one way to increase market share and control competitors. Establishing a threatening reputation from past displays of violence and corrupting government officials are integral components of a combined strategy that allow an OCG to attain a dominant status within the market hierarchy without having to resort to expensive warfare. The following analysis considers criminal violence in Mexico from an economic perspective of illegal firms' incentives to build violent reputation capital. Studying the costs and benefits of utilizing violent intimidation and institutional corruption to gain an economic advantage provides an objective point from which the success or failure of the US-Mexican strategy of fragmentation can be analyzed. Reputation building by criminal organizations will be discussed in the context of their effect on the local population, the government and rival OCGs. This analysis will attempt to answer the central question of whether President Calderon's war against the organized crime groups increases violence and destabilizes the Mexican state. In the end, the continuous periods of intense violence that occur when government enforcement keeps the market destabilized perpetuates an environment where reputation must be constantly rebuilt and reaffirmed with actual displays of violence. This violent environment selects for the most aggressive and brutal leaders all while overburdening criminal justice system and eroding public confidence in the rule of law. Going after the dangerous criminals that control Mexico's illicit underworld sounds like a reasonable and responsible plan to weaken their power over the state but in the end, constantly breaking apart criminal organizations exacerbates many of the problems the government is trying to solve. Details: Hamilton, NY: Colgate University, 2011. 53p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed July 13, 2015 at: http://www.colgate.edu/portaldata/imagegallerywww/096e1793-d3a4-43b3-b7fa-bd595c56c799/ImageGallery/LivingstonA(1)FinalCopy.pdf Year: 2011 Country: Mexico URL: http://www.colgate.edu/portaldata/imagegallerywww/096e1793-d3a4-43b3-b7fa-bd595c56c799/ImageGallery/LivingstonA(1)FinalCopy.pdf Shelf Number: 135999 Keywords: Drug CartelsDrug TraffickingDrug-Related ViolenceHomicidesOrganized CrimeViolent CrimeWar on drugs |
Author: U.S. Department of the Treasury. Office of Foreign Asets Control Title: Impact Report on Economic Sanctions Against Colombia Drug Cartels Summary: Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control ("OFAC") integrates regulatory, national security, investigative, enforcement, and intelligence elements towards a single goal: effective implementation of economic sanctions programs against foreign threats and adversaries. OFAC currently administers and enforces more than 30 economic sanctions programs pursuant to Presidential and Congressional mandates, targeting select foreign countries and regimes, terrorist organizations, proliferators of weapons of mass destruction, and narcotics traffickers. OFAC acts under general Presidential wartime and national emergency powers, as well as specific legislation, to prohibit transactions and freeze (or "block") assets within the United States or in possession or control of U.S. persons, including their foreign branches. These programs are administered in conjunction with diplomatic, law enforcement and occasionally military action. Since 1995, the Executive Branch has developed an array of "targeted" sanctions programs that focus on drug cartels and traffickers, international terrorist groups, proliferators of weapons of mass destruction, members of hostile regimes, and other individuals and groups whose activities threaten U.S. interests. Narcotics traffickers operating on a global scale require an extensive support network, including procurement, logistics, transportation, communications, security, money laundering, and other facilitation. Disguising the sometimes vast profits derived from major drug operations requires the purchase of ostensibly legitimate enterprises capable of handling business on an international scale. These illicitly funded "corporate empires" can be extensive, complex, and undermine the integrity of financial systems. They are also one of the drug cartels' greatest vulnerabilities. To combat the threats of violence, corruption, and harm posed by narcotics traffickers and their networks, President Clinton signed Executive Order 12978 in October 1995, declaring a national emergency with respect to significant foreign narcotics traffickers centered in Colombia. The impact of these sanctions has been significant and, at times, dramatic. When OFAC designates an individual or entity, any assets within the United States or the possession or control of a U.S. person anywhere in the world, must be frozen. Trade with or through the United States is cut off. Moreover, many non-U.S. businesses and banks have voluntarily severed all ties with individuals and entities that OFAC has listed. As a result, designated persons may lose access to their bank accounts outside the United States, disrupting their operations and freedom of access. Finally, in many cases, Colombian authorities have taken law enforcement actions against designated companies or properties after OFAC listed them. Collectively, these actions have disrupted more than $1 billion worth of assets - in blockings, seizures, forfeitures, and the failure of enterprises - and economically isolated the individuals who own and manage the enterprises. The Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy ("ONDCP"), in fact, stated that OFAC's efforts have resulted in "the forfeiture of billions of dollars worth of drug-related assets." This report reviews the SDNT program's achievements over the past 11 years, as it has targeted the leaders of Colombia's Cali, North Valle, and North Coast drug cartels. It is our hope that the report will provide a useful window into the history and achievements of this program, as well as lessons for refining sanctions targeting and implementation in the future in this and other programs. Details: Washington, DC: U.S. Department of the Treasury, 2007. 180p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed July 13, 2015 at: http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/Documents/narco_impact_report_05042007.pdf Year: 2007 Country: Colombia URL: http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/Documents/narco_impact_report_05042007.pdf Shelf Number: 136005 Keywords: Asset ForfeitureDrug CartelsDrug TraffickingDrug-Related ViolenceEconomic Sanctions |
Author: Calderon, Gabriela Title: The Beheading of Criminal Organizations and the Dynamics of Violence in Mexico Summary: In 2006 the Mexican government launched an aggressive campaign to weaken drug- trafficking organizations (DTOs). The security policies differed significantly from those of previous administrations in the use of a leadership strategy (the targeting for arrest of the highest levels or core leadership of criminal networks). While these strategies can play an important role in disrupting the targeted criminal organization, they can also have unintended consequences, increasing inter-cartel and intra-cartel fighting and fragmenting criminal organizations. What impact do captures of senior drug cartel members have on the dynamics of drug-related violence? Does it matter if governments target drug kingpins vs. lower ranked lieutenants? We analyze whether the captures or killings of kingpins and lieutenants have increased drug-related violence and whether the violence spills over spatially. To estimate effects that are credibly causal, we use different empirical strategies that combine difference-in-differences and synthetic control group methods. We find evidence that captures or killings of drug cartel leaders have exacerbating effects not only on DTO-related violence, but also on homicides that affect the general population. Captures or killings of lieutenants, for their part, only seem to exacerbate violence in "strategic places" or municipalities located in the transportation network. While most of the effects on DTO-related violence are found in the first six months after a leader's removal, effects on homicides affecting the rest of the population are more enduring, suggesting different mechanisms through which leadership neutralizations breed violence. Details: Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University, Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law, 2015. 49p. Source: Internet Resource: CDDRL Working Paper: Accessed July 20, 2015 at: http://cddrl.fsi.stanford.edu/publication/beheading-criminal-organizations-and-dynamics-violence-mexico%E2%80%99s-drug-war Year: 2015 Country: Mexico URL: http://cddrl.fsi.stanford.edu/publication/beheading-criminal-organizations-and-dynamics-violence-mexico%E2%80%99s-drug-war Shelf Number: 136109 Keywords: Drug CartelsDrug TraffickingDrug-Related ViolenceHomicidesOrganized Crime |
Author: Beittel, June S. Title: Mexico: Organized Crime and Drug Trafficking Organizations Summary: Reversing a fairly robust record of capturing and imprisoning leaders of Mexico's drug trafficking organizations (DTOs), the escape of notorious cartel leader Joaquin El Chapo Guzman on July 11, 2015, was a huge setback for the Mexican government already beleaguered by charges of corruption and low approval ratings. Mexico's efforts to combat drug traffickers have touched all of the major organizations that once dominated the illicit drug trade: for example, the February 2014 capture of Guzman who leads Sinaloa, Mexico's largest drug franchise; top leaders of Los Zetas in 2013 and March 2015; the October 2014 arrests of Hector Beltran Leyva of the Beltran Leyva Organization and, later, of Vicente Carrillo Fuentes of the once-dominant Juarez cartel. The DTOs have been in constant flux in recent years. By some accounts, in December 2006 there were four dominant DTOs: the Tijuana/Arellano Felix organization (AFO), the Sinaloa cartel, the Juarez/Vicente Carillo Fuentes organization (CFO), and the Gulf cartel. Since then, the more stable large organizations have fractured into many more groups. In recent years, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) identified the following organizations as dominant: Sinaloa, Los Zetas, Tijuana/AFO, Juarez/CFO, Beltran Leyva, Gulf, and La Familia Michoacana. In some sense, these might be viewed as the traditional DTOs. However, many analysts suggest that those 7 seem to have now fragmented to 9 or as many as 20 major organizations. Several analysts estimate there have been at least 80,000 homicides linked to organized crime since 2006. Few dispute that the annual tally of organized crime-related homicides in Mexico has declined since 2011, although there is disagreement about the rate of decline. It appears that the steep increase in organized crime-related homicides during the six-year administration of Mexican President Felipe Calderon (2006-2012) is likely to trend down far more slowly than it rose. The Mexican government no longer publishes data on organized crime-related homicides. However, the government reported the rate of all homicides in Mexico has declined by 30% since 2012 (roughly 15% in 2013, and another 15% in 2014). Although murder rates have diminished, the incidence of other violent crimes targeting Mexican citizens, such as kidnapping and extortion, has increased through 2013 and stayed elevated. Notably, questions about the accuracy of the government's crime statistics persist. Former President Calderon made his aggressive campaign against the DTOs a defining policy of his government, which the DTOs violently resisted. Operations to eliminate DTO leaders sparked organizational change that led to significantly greater instability among the groups and continued violence. Since his inauguration in December 2012, Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto has faced an increasingly complex crime situation. The major DTOs have fragmented, and new crime groups have emerged. Meanwhile, the DTOs and other criminal gangs furthered their expansion into other illegal activities, such as extortion, kidnapping, and oil theft, and the organizations now pose a multi-faceted organized criminal challenge to governance in Mexico no less threatening to the rule of law than the challenge that faced Pena Nieto's predecessor. According to the Pena Nieto Administration, 93 of the 122 top criminal targets that their government has identified have been arrested or otherwise "neutralized" (killed in arrest efforts) as of May 2015, although Guzman's escape confounds that achievement. Congress remains concerned about security conditions inside Mexico and the illicit drug trade. The Mexican DTOs are the major wholesalers of illegal drugs in the United States and are increasingly gaining control of U.S. retail-level distribution through alliances with U.S. gangs. This report provides background on drug trafficking and organized crime inside Mexico: it identifies the major DTOs, and it examines how the organized crime "landscape" has been significantly altered by fragmentation. Details: Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, 2015. 37p. Source: Internet Resource: R41576: Accessed July 28, 2015 at: https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R41576.pdf Year: 2015 Country: Mexico URL: https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R41576.pdf Shelf Number: 136160 Keywords: Border PatrolBorder SecurityDrug CartelsDrug TraffickingDrug-Related ViolenceHomicidesOrganized Crime |
Author: Otis, John Title: The FARC and Colombia's Illegal Drug Trade Summary: In 2014, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, Latin America's oldest and largest guerrilla army known as the FARC, marked the 50th anniversary of the start of its war against the Colombian government. More than 220,000 people have been killed and more than five million people uprooted from their homes in the conflict, which is the last remaining guerrilla war in the Western Hemisphere. However, this grim, half-century milestone coincides with peace negotiations between the Colombian government and the FARC that began in Havana, Cuba, in November 2012. The Havana talks have advanced much farther than the three previous efforts to negotiate with the FARC and there is a growing sense that a final peace treaty is now likely. So far, the two sides have reached agreements on three of the five points on the negotiating agenda, including an accord to resolve an issue that helps explain why the conflict has lasted so long: The FARC's deep involvement in the taxation, production, and trafficking of illegal drugs. On May 16, 2014, the government and the FARC signed an agreement stating that under the terms of a final peace treaty, the two sides would work in tandem to eradicate coca, the plant used to make cocaine, and to combat cocaine trafficking in areas under guerrilla control. A decade ago, Colombia supplied about 90 percent of the world's cocaine. But due to anti-drug efforts in Colombia as well as Peru's reemergence as a major producer, Colombia since 2011 is believed to provide less than half of the world's cocaine, according to U.S. officials. Yet drug profits continue to be a vital source of cash for the FARC, a smaller Marxist rebel group known as the National Liberation Army, or ELN, and other criminal organizations in Colombia. Massive drug profits help the FARC to buy weapons, uniforms, and supplies and to recruit fresh troops. The fight between the FARC and illegal right-wing paramilitary groups over coca fields and drug smuggling corridors has been a key factor in the conflict's extreme levels of violence, forced displacement and land grabs. When the two sides first met to discuss the drug issue in November 2013, Colombia's chief peace negotiator, Humberto de la Calle, called the illegal drug trade "the fuel that feeds the conflict." During the last round of peace talks with the government that lasted from 1999 to 2002, the FARC was at the peak of its military power thanks, in part, to a surge in drug income and made almost no effort to seriously negotiate a peace treaty. Since then, the U.S. government has provided Colombia with $9.3 billion in aid, much of which has been spent on counterinsurgency and counterdrug programs targeting the FARC. The Colombian military's successful efforts to weaken the FARC and reduce its drug income through targeting coca fields, drug laboratories, and smugglers have helped convince FARC leaders to return to the bargaining table for negotiations that hold much promise for a final peace accord. This paper will examine the FARC's long history of involvement in Colombia's illegal narcotics industry and the impact of rebel drug profits on the course of the armed conflict. It will also explore the likely impact of the drug accord reached at the peace negotiations in Cuba on efforts to extricate the FARC from the drug-trafficking equation, possible changes in Colombia's counterdrug policies, as well as the strong possibility that some FARC members will continue producing and smuggling drugs in a post-conflict scenario. Details: Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Latin American Program, 2014. 27p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed August 3, 2015 at: http://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/Otis_FARCDrugTrade2014.pdf Year: 2014 Country: Colombia URL: http://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/Otis_FARCDrugTrade2014.pdf Shelf Number: 136289 Keywords: Drug CartelsDrug TraffickingDrug-Related ViolenceRevolutionary Armed Forced of ColombiaSmuggling |
Author: Haahr, Kathryn Title: Addressing the Concerns of the Oil Industry: Security Challenges in Northeastern Mexico and Government Responses Summary: This case study analyzes the Mexican Government's response to recent threats to and attacks against energy infrastructure and personnel in Tamaulipas and Veracruz. The government is addressing the issue of cartel-induced violence in Tamaulipas and Veracruz by mobilizing security frameworks for newly established and existing state law enforcement entities and the Military. The security arrangements, that include policing of major ports and protecting Pemex facilities and operations, should help the oil and gas industry to better absorb the financial risks to its business operations. Details: Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, 2015. 21p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed August 4, 2015 at: http://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/Addressing%20the%20Concerns%20of%20the%20Oil%20Industry_0.pdf Year: 2015 Country: Mexico URL: http://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/Addressing%20the%20Concerns%20of%20the%20Oil%20Industry_0.pdf Shelf Number: 136309 Keywords: Drug CartelsDrug-Related ViolenceInfrastructure SecurityOil IndustryOrganized CrimeTerrorism |
Author: Melara, Christian N. Title: Fighting narcotraffic in Latin America: Mexico and El Salvador - a comparative approach Summary: Mexico and El Salvador have been fighting organized crime for decades. While Mexico has fought drug cartels with the support of the U.S. government, El Salvador has struggled to lower high crime rates mostly with its own resources. Mexico, which has a different government structure from El Salvador's, has not been able to control drug trafficking despite the use of armed forces. Although Mexico's approach to fighting drug cartels differs from El Salvador's approach, neither country has been able to control organized crime in its own territory. While both countries have used armed forces, the outcomes vary. Mexico achieved partial success by incarcerating drug cartel leaders and seizing drugs; however, drug trafficking continued. El Salvador'suse of armed forces has been limited, and the strategy did not lower high crime rates. Human rights issues have aroused negative attention to both countries. The magnitude of the criminal activity in both countries requires a more comprehensive approach, rather than the use of armed forces to counter criminal organized crime. Details: Monterey, CA: Naval Postgraduate School, 2015. 91p. Source: Internet Resource: Thesis: Accessed September 9, 2015 at: https://calhoun.nps.edu/bitstream/handle/10945/45226/15Mar_Melara_Christian.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y Year: 2015 Country: Latin America URL: https://calhoun.nps.edu/bitstream/handle/10945/45226/15Mar_Melara_Christian.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y Shelf Number: 136710 Keywords: Drug CartelsDrug TraffickingOrganized Crime |
Author: Castillo, Juan Camilo Title: Should drug policy be aimed at cartel leaders? Breaking down a peaceful equilibrium Summary: Experience from the last decade in Colombia and Mexico suggests that violence increases when governments achieve their objective of beheading and fragmenting drug trafficking organizations (DTOs). In this paper I provide a theoretical framework to understand this behavior. Drawing elements from industrial organization, I model DTOs as firms that collude by not attacking each other in order to increase their profits. DTOs always collude when they interact repeatedly; thus, previous analyses focusing on a static Nash equilibrium miss an important part of the dynamics between DTOs. I show that a peaceful equilibrium arises if there are only a few DTOs that care enough about the future. Policies resulting either in a larger number of DTOs or in more impatient leaders increase violence between DTOs without reducing supply. On the other hand, policies that reduce the productivity of DTOs, without directly attacking their leaders and fragmenting them, are more desirable since they can curb supply, although this comes at the cost of increased violence if the elasticity of demand is below a certain threshold. I calculate this threshold, which is a refinement of the value suggested by Becker et al. (2006) for consumer markets. Details: Bogota, Colombia: Universidad de los AndesFacultad de EconomaCEDE, 2013. 52p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed January 28, 2016 at: https://economia.uniandes.edu.co/components/com_booklibrary/ebooks/dcede2013-41.pdf Year: 2013 Country: South America URL: https://economia.uniandes.edu.co/components/com_booklibrary/ebooks/dcede2013-41.pdf Shelf Number: 131160 Keywords: Drug CartelsDrug Trafficking Drug-Related Violence Illegal Drug Markets Organized Crime |
Author: International Displacement Monitoring Centre Title: Forced displacement linked to transnational organised crime in Mexico Summary: Drug cartel violence in Mexico has increased dramatically since 2007, when the new government of President Felipe Calderon identified insecurity as a key problem and began deploying the military to fight the cartels in key locations. According to various analysts the strategy has backfired, stirring up a hornet's nest by disturbing existing arrangements between the cartels, and sparking wars both within and between them. The impact of the violence has been enormous. Government figures put the number of people killed since the launch of the security strategy at 47,000, with more than 15,000 losing their lives in 2010 and 12,900 in the first nine months of 2011. The media have repeatedly put the death toll at 50,000, and many have referred to the violence as an insurgency or armed conflict. It is clear, however, that the cartels do not have a political agenda or ideology, and such references have prompted angry responses from the Mexican government. Whether the violence can be defined as an internal armed conflict under international humanitarian law or not, its effects on the civilian population have been significant and the response inadequate. One impact has been forced migration, both internal and cross-border. Because of available resources and timeframe this study focuses exclusively on the former. Civil society organisations, academic institutions and the media have increasingly documented cases and patterns of forced internal displacement caused by drug cartel violence. That said, aside from two cases of mass displacement - in Tamaulipas in 2010 and in Michoacan in 2011 - most people have fled individually, and as a result information is scattered. This study aims to fill that information gap. Firstly, it documents an empirical link between drug cartel violence and forced displacement at the national level, distinguishing it from economic migration and where possible identifying patterns of displacement. Secondly, it identifies and describes the vulnerabilities of those affected, focusing on access to the basic necessities of life and livelihood opportunities in places of displacement, and housing, land and property rights. Thirdly, it maps government responses at both the federal and state level. Details: Geneva, SWIT: IDMC, 2012. 42p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed January 28, 2016 at: http://www.internal-displacement.org/assets/publications/2012/2012005-am-mexico-Mexico-forced-displacement-en.pdf Year: 2012 Country: Mexico URL: http://www.internal-displacement.org/assets/publications/2012/2012005-am-mexico-Mexico-forced-displacement-en.pdf Shelf Number: 137705 Keywords: DisappearancesDrug CartelsDrug ViolenceDrug-Related ViolenceForced MigrationHomicidesOrganized Crime |
Author: McCarthy-Jones, Anthea Title: Mexical Drug Cartels and Dark-Networks: An Emerging Threat to Australia's National Security Summary: Over the past decade Mexican drug cartels' power and the violent struggles between them have increased exponentially. Previously Mexico, and in particular the border regions with the US, were the key battle grounds for control of distribution routes. However, today Mexican drug cartels are now looking abroad in an attempt to extend their operations. This expansion has seen several cartels moving into lucrative international markets in Europe and the Asia Pacific. It is in this context that Australia has now become a target of several Mexican cartels. They have already established linkages in the Asia Pacific and are further attempting to strengthen and expand these - with a particular focus on penetrating the Australian market. These developments show how Mexican drug cartels operate as 'dark-networks', successfully creating a global system that seeks to capture new markets, and further extend their control and dominance of the flow of illicit drugs around the world. For Australia, the emergence of Mexican drug cartels in local markets presents not only criminal but strategic challenges. The size of these operations, their resources and 'dark-network' structure makes them a difficult opponent. Their presence threatens to not only increase the supply of illicit drugs in Australia, but encourage turf wars, increase the amount of guns in the country, tax border security resources and threaten the stability and good governance of South Pacific transit spots. This represents the end of Australia's 'tyranny of distance', which previously acted as a buffer and protected Australia from the interests of remote criminal groups such as the Mexican cartels. Details: Australian National University, Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, 2016. 12p. Source: Internet Resource: Centre of Gravity Series: Accessed May 18, 2016 at: http://ips.cap.anu.edu.au/sites/default/files/COG%20%2325%20Web%20v3.pdf Year: 2016 Country: Australia URL: http://ips.cap.anu.edu.au/sites/default/files/COG%20%2325%20Web%20v3.pdf Shelf Number: 139078 Keywords: Border SecurityDark NetworksDrug CartelsDrug TraffickingIllegal DrugsOrganized Crime |
Author: Guarin, Arlen Title: The Effects of Punishment of Crime in Colombia on Deterrence, Incapacitation, and Human Capital Formation Summary: Based on individual data on the population of those arrested in Medellin, we assess whether the change in punishment at age 18, mandated by law, has a deterrent effect on arrests. No deterrent effect was found on index, violent or property crimes, but a deterrence effect was found on non-index crimes, specifically those related to drug consumption and trafficking. This implies an elasticity of arrests with respect to punishment that varies between -1.0 and -6.7 percent. The number of days that arrested individuals take to recidivate is 300, higher for index crimes if they are arrested right after, rather than before, reaching 18 years of age, in which case they are less likely to recidivate in any type of crime. The change in criminal penalties at 18 years of age does not explain future differences in human capital formation among the population that had been arrested immediately after versus immediately before reaching 18 years of age. There is no evidence that the longer length of time to recidivate on the part of individuals arrested for the first time immediately after reaching 18 implies future differences in human capital formation. This suggest that our estimated incapacitation effect would not be explained by the impossibility of the arrested population to recidivate due to their having been imprisoned, but rather by a specific deterrence effect resulting from the harsher experience while in prison of those arrested right after, rather than before, reaching 18. Details: Bogota, Colombia: Banco de la Repblica, 2013. 59p. Source: Internet Resource: : Accessed August 5, 2016 at: http://www.banrep.gov.co/en/borrador-774 Year: 2013 Country: Colombia URL: http://www.banrep.gov.co/en/borrador-774 Shelf Number: 130037 Keywords: DeterrenceDrug CartelsDrug TraffickingPunishment |
Author: Proctor, Nathan Title: Anonymity Overdose: Ten cases that connect opioid trafficking and related money laundering to anonymous shell companies Summary: Opioid deaths now exceed those from motor vehicle accidents. It's clear we need to do more. Fair Share Education Fund's latest report, "Anonymity Overdose," connects opioid trafficking and the subsequent crisis with the activities of anonymous shell companies - companies formed with no way of knowing who is actually in charge. Because they shield the owners from accountability, anonymous shell companies are a common tool for disguising criminal activity and laundering money, and are also at heart of the Panama Papers. "Anonymity Overdose" found 10 case studies that show the connection between the use of anonymous shell companies and opioid trafficking and related money laundering. In one such example, Kingsley Iyare Osemwengie and his associates were found to use call girls and couriers to transport oxycodone, and then move profits through an anonymous shell company aptly named High Profit Investments LLC. Meanwhile, the crisis is taking an increasing toll on the nation. According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) , in 2014 there were approximately one and a half times more drug overdose deaths in the United States than deaths from motor vehicle crashes. Since 2000, the rate of deaths from opioid related overdoses has increased 200%. The CDC refers to the opioid crisis as an epidemic. The report uses perspectives provided by law enforcement officials as well as federal court cases to highlight the role that ending anonymous shell companies could play in addressing the crisis. Details: Washington, DC: Fair Share, 2016. 20p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed August 6, 2016 at: http://www.fairshareonline.org/sites/default/files/AnonymityOverdose_Aug1_2016.pdf Year: 2016 Country: United States URL: http://www.fairshareonline.org/sites/default/files/AnonymityOverdose_Aug1_2016.pdf Shelf Number: 139975 Keywords: Drug AdditionDrug CartelsDrug TraffickingMoney Laundering |
Author: Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime Title: Protecting Politics: Deterring the Influence of Organized Crime on Local Democracy Summary: Local democracy encompasses formal and informal sub-national institutions that respond to citizens' needs. At the centre of local democratic practice are open governments, which provide people with space to promote participation, deliberation and a focus on public interests. However, local state fragility undermines democracy. Organized crime increasingly exploits such weaknesses in order to protect its illicit businesses, as political corruption is an ideal avenue preferred by organized criminal groups. This report examines the interlinkages between organized crime networks and political actors at the local level. It also analyses policy responses (particularly decentralization policies) that haveintentionally or unintentionally- enabled or prevented organized crime engagement in political corruption at the local level. Case studies from Afghanistan, Colombia and Niger illustrate how illicit networks relate to local levels of government and decentralization processes. Details: Stockholm, Sweden: International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance; Geneva, SWIT: Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime, 2016. 71p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed September 26, 2016 at: http://globalinitiative.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/protecting-politics-deterring-the-influence-of-organized-crime-on-local-democracy-pdf.pdf Year: 2016 Country: International URL: http://globalinitiative.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/protecting-politics-deterring-the-influence-of-organized-crime-on-local-democracy-pdf.pdf Shelf Number: 140460 Keywords: Criminal NetworksDrug CartelsIllicit networksOrganized CrimePoliticians |
Author: Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime Title: Protecting Politics: Deterring the Influence of Organized Crime on Public Service Delivery Summary: Public service delivery is one of the main tasks citizens expect from their governments. Democracy is a political system that should improve service delivery as it offers the building blocks for equitable resource distribution and sustainable development. Indeed, in the frameworks of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the democratic principles of transparency and accountability play a key role in the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals. However, in many contexts, public service delivery is fraught with corrupt practices, leading to less accountable and less effective public services that are not adequately reaching those they are intended to serve. Particularly in fragile and conflict affected states, corrupt practices can sometimes be linked to organized crime. These illicit groups and networks increasingly form parallel structures that compete with the state to provide services, either in open conflict with the state, or sometimes working with the explicit or tacit agreement of the authorities. In other cases, however, organized crime does not become a service provider but instead hinders the state's provision of services by leeching off state resources through corruption in public contracts. In all of these cases, organized crime perpetuates poverty and inequality, while threatening economic growth and, by extension, democracy itself. Furthermore, organized crime challenges the state's legitimacy by profiling itself as a viable provider of services to the population, while the state's capacity to provide services is undermined. Citizens are consequently left with hollow democratic state institutions that are not capable of delivering better lives for them. Growing discontent with politics, as reflected in a number of public perceptions surveys and massive protests around the world, are important wake-up calls to implement serious strategies to prevent and mitigate political corruption linked to organized crime. The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA) and the Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime (GI) are therefore committed to supporting countries around the world in addressing the threat that organized crime poses to their democracies. Understanding how organized crime challenges the state's legitimacy as public service provider is therefore one important contribution to these efforts. That is why, in 2011, International IDEA launched the Protecting Politics project, conducting research and providing policy support to tackle the nexus between organized crime and political actors. Most importantly, in 2015 International IDEA joined forces with GI to explore the linkages between organized crime and public service delivery. This report summarizes these findings, drawing on case studies from Afghanistan, Colombia and Somalia to analyse in detail how organized crime has become a viable service provider in some localities in these countries, and how it has captured legitimacy from the state in the process. This report complements three other papers that examine how organized crime affects political parties, elections and local democracy, respectively. Together, these four reports provide a unique and detailed overview of democratic systems' capacity to deal with complex security threats such as organized crime. Details: Stockholm, Sweden: International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance; Geneva, SWIT: Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime, 2016. 65p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed September 26, 2016 at: http://www.idea.int/publications/protecting-politics-organized-crime-public-service-delivery/loader.cfm?csModule=security/getfile&pageID=80689 Year: 2016 Country: International URL: http://www.idea.int/publications/protecting-politics-organized-crime-public-service-delivery/loader.cfm?csModule=security/getfile&pageID=80689 Shelf Number: 140461 Keywords: Criminal Networks Drug CartelsIllicit networks Organized Crime Politicians |
Author: Gautreau, Ginette Lea Title: The Third Mexico: Civil Society Advocacy for Alternative Policies in the Mexican Drug War Summary: The growth of the drug war and rates of narco-violence in Mexico has captured the attention of the international community, leading to international debates about the validity and effectiveness of the War on Drugs mantra. Since 2006, the Mexican government has been actively combating the cartels with armed troops, leading to high rates of human rights abuses as well as growing opposition to official prohibition policies. This thesis explores three movements advocating for alternatives to the Mexican drug war that have their foundation in civil society organizations: the movements for human rights protection, for drug policy liberalization and for the protection and restitution of victims of the drug war. These movements are analysed through a theoretical framework drawing on critical political economy theory, civil society and social movement theory, and political opportunity structures. This thesis concludes that, when aligned favourably, the interplay of agency and political opportunities converge to create openings for shifting dominant norms and policies. While hegemonic structures continue to limit agency potential, strong civil society advocacy strategies complemented by strong linkages with transnational civil society networks have the potential to achieve transformative changes in the War on Drugs in Mexico. Details: Ottawa: University of Ottawa, 2011. 130p. Source: Internet Resource: Thesis: Accessed October 17, 2016 at: https://www.ruor.uottawa.ca/bitstream/10393/31029/1/Gautreau_Ginette_2014_Thesis.pdf Year: 2011 Country: Mexico URL: https://www.ruor.uottawa.ca/bitstream/10393/31029/1/Gautreau_Ginette_2014_Thesis.pdf Shelf Number: 140768 Keywords: Drug CartelsDrug Enforcement Drug Trafficking Drug-Related Violence War on Drugs |
Author: McDermott, Jeremy Title: The "Victory" of the Urabenos: The New Face of Colombian Organized Crime Summary: The mad scramble for criminal power in the aftermath of the demobilization of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) is over. The Urabeños, or as they prefer to call themselves, the "Autodefensas Gaitanistas de Colombia," have won. Following the completion of the AUC demobilization in 2006, more than 30 new criminal groups, known as the "BACRIM” (for the Spanish for criminal bands – “bandas criminales”) were born. Over the last eight years it has been a war to the death between these groups for hegemony. The winners, the Urabeños, are the perfect amalgamation of Colombian organized crime. While they were born from the demobilization of the AUC, much of the Urabeños’ criminal pedigree goes much further back. Many of their members, before joining the paramilitaries, were part of one of the three main Marxist rebel groups, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the National Liberation Army (ELN) or the People's Liberation Army (EPL). And many others, particularly on the drug trafficking side, can trace their criminal history back to the Medellín Cartel, which pioneered the cocaine trade almost 40 years ago. The Urabeños encompass three generations of criminal expertise, melded into a hybrid structure forged by the current situation in Colombia. Does this mean that Colombian organized crime has come full circle? Ever since Pablo Escobar was killed on a Medellín rooftop in 1993, organized crime has continued to fragment. Yet now, once again, a single criminal syndicate dominates the underworld. The Urabeños, though, are not a hierarchical, integrated criminal organization with a unified and central command structure. As shall be seen in Section 2, where the structure of the BACRIM is defined, Colombia's National Police face a very different challenge than they did with the Medellín Cartel. The success of Colombia's security forces against drug trafficking organizations (DTOs) cannot be underestimated. Under constant pressure, Colombian organized crime has evolved and mutated. The result of this constant evolution is the Urabeños. It is a criminal network, built around a series of units, or "nodes." The basic building block of this network is the "oficina de cobro," a peculiarly Colombian manifestation of organized crime that, as with so many things in the underworld, traces its roots back to the Medellín Cartel. If one node of the structure is taken out, the network simply shifts, with new nodes taking over the roles of their dismantled predecessors. This is true even in the case of command nodes, such as those formerly headed by Urabeños founder Daniel Rendón Herrera, alias "Don Mario," and that of the next leader, Juan de Dios Usuga, alias "Giovanni.” Another result of Colombia's increasingly efficient police force is the phenomenon of criminal migration, or "the cockroach effect." Turn on the lights in a room and the cockroaches run for the dark corners. The lights have been turned on in Colombia, and the criminal cockroaches have, in many cases, moved abroad. While the Mexicans now dominate the traditional cocaine market of the United States, the Colombians have been developing and exploiting new markets. They have targeted not only the European Union, but booming domestic markets far closer to home, those of Latin America's most populous nations: Brazil, Argentina and Colombia itself. As coca crops have been reduced in Colombia, the balloon effect has led to increased drug cultivation in Peru, now the world's top cocaine producer, and in neighboring Bolivia. And at almost every link in the drug chain in these two Andean nations, you will find a Colombian. The Colombians remain the pioneers of the world's drug trade. The Mexican cartels may now overshadow their Colombian counterparts in terms of power and military capacity, but the fragmentation of organized crime in Colombia is being replicated in Mexico. The recent capture of Mexico's so-called Pablo Escobar, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzmán, of the mighty Sinaloa cartel, will simply accelerate this process. As more members of the Urabeños’ central command (its "Estado Mayor" or "board of directors") get taken down, it is likely that the domination exercised by those from Colombia's banana-growing heartland will be eclipsed, and the criminal network that currently exists may take on a different name. The evolution of Colombian organized crime is constant, and will remain so as long as the vast profits are available. Cocaine is no longer the sole, or perhaps even the primary element of the Urabeños’ criminal portfolio. Gold mining, extortion, human trafficking, gambling and prostitution all provide criminal revenues, to name but a few. No longer can the National Police focus its attention solely on the cocaine trade. The Urabeños look for any criminal opportunity, and exploit it swiftly and efficiently. The police must keep up, and in the case of the gold industry, for example, they are trailing behind, hamstrung by the lack of adequate legislation and tools to combat this illegal industry Details: s.l.: InsightCrime, 2014. 33p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed November 18, 2016 at: http://www.insightcrime.org/images/PDFs/2016/The_Victory_of_the_Urabenos.pdf Year: 2014 Country: Colombia URL: http://www.insightcrime.org/images/PDFs/2016/The_Victory_of_the_Urabenos.pdf Shelf Number: 141202 Keywords: Drug CartelsDrug Trafficking Human Trafficking Organized Crime |
Author: Salcedo-Albaran, Eduardo Title: Structure of a Transnational Criminal Network: "Los Zetas" and the Smuggling of Hydrocarbons Summary: Mexico is currently one of the most important hotspots of criminal activity with effects in the Western Hemisphere. In this criminal dynamic, the Sinaloa Cartel, The Gulf Cartel, "La Familia Michoacana", "The Knights Templar" and "Los Zetas" are some of the most relevant criminal networks that originated in Mexico, but currently reach and operate in different countries across Latin America, Europe, Africa, and Asia. While the operations of criminal networks inside of Mexico are severely violent, outside of Mexico their operations mainly consist of smuggling, transportation and distribution of illegal drugs, and other such activities. "Los Zetas", initially created out of former elite army soldiers, was the armed wing of the criminal network known as the “Gulf Cartel” [Cartel del Golfo] at the beginning of the present century. However, very quickly "Los Zetas" began operating as an independent criminal network, currently challenging the Gulf Cartel for control of trafficking routes and "plazas", meaning gaining local power in municipalities. Bearing this in mind, in this paper we present and discuss a model of a transnational criminal structure of "Los Zetas". Details: Bogota, Colombia: Vortex Foundation, 2014. 40p. Source: Internet Resource: Vortex Working Paper no. 12: Accessed February 23, 2017 at: http://media.wix.com/ugd/f53019_b8156d42310843a1b9dbcce4095c51b8.pdf Year: 2014 Country: Mexico URL: http://media.wix.com/ugd/f53019_b8156d42310843a1b9dbcce4095c51b8.pdf Shelf Number: 141197 Keywords: Criminal NetworkDrug CartelsDrug TraffickingSmuggling |
Author: Diaz-Cayeros, Alberto Title: Caught in the Crossfire: The Geography of Extortion and Police Corruption in Mexico Summary: When Mexican president Felipe Calderón took office in December 2006 he declared a war on the nation’s drug traffic organizations (Ríos and Shirk, 2011). Violence escalated as criminal organizations became increasingly fragmented and disputed their territories (Killebrew and Bernal, 2010; Beittel, 2011). The main strategy followed by the federal government involved capturing leaders and lieutenants of criminal organizations (Calderón et al. forthcoming). This seemed to provoke even more violence, by making the competition over-territorial control fiercer and providing incentives for many gangs to make extortion and protection fees (derecho de piso) an additional source of revenue (Guerrero-Gutiérrez, 2010). Given the absence of legal(and peaceful) rules and enforcement mechanisms for competitors in the illegal drug market, disagreements were usually solved violently. Under the pressure of the crackdown by the federal police, the navy and the army, contracts among criminal gangs were often disrupted, leading to even more violence. Competition over the strategic routes towards the market in the United States was settled by literally eliminating rivals (Dell, 2012). The wide availability of illegal guns crossing from the US border (Dube et al., 2013) turned firearm deaths into the main cause of death among young men in Mexico.Meanwhile, citizens became caught in the crossfire of rival drug cartels and extortion at the hands of criminal gangs. A highly visible example of this was the case of two students in the prestigious private university Tecnológico de Monterrey who were kidnapped by drug traffickers in 2010, but then killed by the military in a botched attempt to rescue them. The case became particularly controversial due to the excessive use of force by the army and their effort to cover up the case with planted evidence. During the late 1990s and early 2000s Mexico gradually changed from being a transit territory for drugs heading to the United States market to a place of increasing consumption (Castañeda and Aguilar, 2010). This transformation was partially driven by a change in the way that wholesale drug importers were paying for services; they switched from payments only in cash to payments with part of the same drug they were distributing (Grillo, 2011:80). The change from a transportation to a retail distribution business implied that drug cartels had to increase the number of personnel. Having a larger full-time workforce, the cartels could now count on small armies of salaried criminals at their disposal. The perfect complement to this new industrial organization was an easily corruptible police and judicial system at all levels of government. Increasingly fragmented criminal organizations began to diversify their illegal activities–to extortion of small businesses, kidnappings of middle-class individuals, racketeering and control of retail trade in their territories, and extortion of migrant workers– perhaps in associations with police departments. Although it is difficult to provide evidence on how much real progress has been made, there is no question that efforts at reforming the police forces in Mexico face a momentous challenge in such environment. Although a new federal police force was created after 2006 and, in principle, all police had to comply with background checks and other administrative procedures, in fact, state and municipal police forces remain not just corrupt but also keep on using excessive force and violating human rights. This became patently clear in the case of the 43 Ayotzinapa missing students that in October of 2014 were detained by the municipal police of the city of Iguala, to be handed in to the killers of a drug traffic organization. The police forces of Iguala are not the only ones that are penetrated by organized crime and have failed to protect citizens. This chapter explores the connection between police distrust, corruption and extortion. Despite the difficulty in measuring these phenomena through conventional public opinion polls and citizen or firm level surveys,much can be learned from the variation across geographic units in reported victimization and corruption. We use a list experiment collected through the Survey on Public Safety and Governance in Mexico (SPSGM), to study the practices of extortion by both police forces and criminal organizations. Using a Bayesian spatial estimation method, we provide a mapping of the geographic distribution of police extortion. Our findings suggest that weak state institutions in vast regions within Mexico have become captured, through corruption, by competing drug traffic organizations. Extortion prevails either because police forces have become agents of criminal organizations or because criminals can engage in racketeering without any police intervention. We conclude with a discussion of the emergence of self-defense groups as a strategy for coping with extortion; a strategy that while effective at protecting citizens,may further undermine state capacity. Details: Stanford, CA: Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford University, 2014. 27p. Source: Internet Resource: CDDRL Working Paper; Accessed February 28, 2017 at: http://fsi.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/caught_in_the_crossfire_final_final.pdf Year: 2014 Country: Mexico URL: http://fsi.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/caught_in_the_crossfire_final_final.pdf Shelf Number: 141225 Keywords: Drug CartelsDrug TraffickingExtortionGun-Related ViolenceHomicidesOrganized CrimePolice Corruption |
Author: Magaloni, Beatriz Title: The Mexican War on Drugs: Crime and the Limits of Government Persuasion Summary: In order to successfully battle organized crime, governments require a certain degree of citizens' support. Governments are sometimes able to influence citizens' opinions, but sometimes they are not. Under what circumstances do pro-government frames influence citizens' opinions? Will individuals who are victims of crime be equally sensitive to frames than those who are not? We argue that crime victimization desensitizes citizens to pro-government frames. This further complicates governments' fights against criminals, creating a vicious circle of insecurity, distrust, and frustrated policy interventions. To test our argument, we conducted a frame experiment embedded in a nationwide survey in Mexico. The empirical evidence supports our argument in most circumstances; yet desensitization is moderated by love media-exposure and identification with the president's party. Details: Stanford, CA: Center on Democracy, Development, and The Rule of Law, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, 2013. 32p. Source: Internet Resource: CDDRL Working Paper no. 144: Accessed February 28, 2017 at: http://cddrl.fsi.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/144.Romero_Magaloni_Diazcayeros_frameeffects_v6.0.pdf Year: 2013 Country: Mexico URL: http://cddrl.fsi.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/144.Romero_Magaloni_Diazcayeros_frameeffects_v6.0.pdf Shelf Number: 141226 Keywords: Drug CartelsDrug TraffickingDrug-Related ViolenceOrganized CrimeWar on Drugs |
Author: Silva Avalos, Hector Title: Corruption in El Salvador: Politians, Police, and Transportistas Summary: Corruption and the infiltration of public institutions in Central America by organized crime groups is an unaddressed issue that lies at the core of the increasing violence and democratic instability that has afflicted the region in the last decade. In El Salvador, infiltration has mutated into a system capable of determining important political and strategic decisions, such as the election of high-level judicial officials and the shaping of the state approach to fighting crime. This paper addresses corruption in El Salvador's National Civil Police (PNC), the law enforcement agency created under the auspices of the 1992 Peace Accord that ended the country's 12-year civil war. Archival and field research presented here demonstrates that the PNC has been plagued by its own "original sin": the inclusion of former soldiers that worked with criminal groups and preserved a closed power structure that prevented any authority from investigating them for over two decades. This original sin has allowed criminal bands formed in the 1980s as weapon or drug smugglers to forge connections with the PNC and to develop into sophisticated drug trafficking organizations (DTOs). These new DTOs are now involved in money laundering, have secured pacts with major criminal players in the region - such as Mexican and Colombian cartels - and have learned how to use the formal economy and financial system. These "entrepreneurs" of crime, long tolerated and nurtured by law enforcement officials and politicians in El Salvador, are now major regional players themselves. Details: Washington, DC: Center for Latin American & Latino Studies, American University, 2014. 36p. Source: Internet Resource: CLALS Working Paper Series, No. 4: Accessed June 26, 2017 at: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2419174 Year: 2014 Country: El Salvador URL: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2419174 Shelf Number: 146382 Keywords: Drug CartelsDrug TraffickingOrganized CrimePolice CorruptionPolitical Corruption |
Author: Park, Jung H. Title: What Explains the Patterns of Diversification in Drug Trafficking Organization? Summary: The purpose of this thesis is to identify the factors that influence drug trafficking organizations' motivations to diversify their operations. With that in mind, the thesis seeks to answer the question: What explains the patterns of the drug trafficking organization's diversification? For this thesis, I have used sources found on corporate diversification, in addition to sources that I have found for three Mexican drug trafficking organizations (DTOs): the Sinaloa, Los Zetas, and Tijuana, to highlight the similarities and the differences in patterns among the three. The thesis concludes that various factors allow the DTOs to diversify into new businesses. First, as is the case in Mexico, the state has to be weak to provide opportunities for the clandestine organizations to diversify. Second, DTOs find opportunities through economic globalization and abundance of organizational resources that they use to motivate themselves to diversify. Moreover, to acclimate to the ever-changing clandestine landscape, DTOs require a decentralized internal structure. DTOs diversify to maximize their ability to cross-subsidize their revenue to combat state suppression. Rather than using hard power to cripple the DTOs, the Mexican government needs to understand their operation to hit them where it hurts, in their profits, by better understanding their operation. Details: Monterey, CA: Naval Postgraduate School, 2016. 103p. Source: Internet Thesis: Resource: Accessed July 27, 2017 at: https://www.hsdl.org/?view&did=794992 Year: 2016 Country: Mexico URL: https://www.hsdl.org/?view&did=794992 Shelf Number: 0 Keywords: Drug CartelsDrug Trafficking Organized Crime |
Author: Tzanetakis, Meropi Title: A case study on an Austrian upper-level drug dealing network Summary: Many studies have been published for the US and Latin America, analyzing systematically how drug cartels operate. Nevertheless, equivalent studies on upper-level drug dealing are missing for Europe (Dorn/ Levy/ King 2005). There is a lack of empirical data, plus a lack of theoretical concepts explaining organizational dynamics of upper-level drug dealing. Moreover, there are different definitions on European upper-level drug dealing, each capturing only certain aspects. This study is aiming to close this research gap and it is consequently focusing on upper-level drug dealing in Europe. Therefore, an explorative case study on an upper-level drug dealing network finally convicted according to 28 Abs. 4 SMG (Austrian narcotics act) was chosen (buying tons of illicit drugs in Spain and the Netherlands, smuggling and selling them in special bars in Austria). Two research questions are guiding the study: How do upper-level drug dealing networks operate in the European Union? A second research question is looking for a definition on upper-level drug dealing based on the case study. Data was gained though copies of court files including investigation records, phone tapping protocols, accusations, trial protocols and verdicts; all in all about 2000 pages of data. Additionally, qualitative and semi-structured interviews with an imprisoned drug dealer were conducted and transcribed. This person was sentenced to 15 years of prison in Austria. Furthermore, semi-structured interviews with experts from the Federal Criminal Agency in Austria (dep. of money laundering, drug-related crime and international police cooperation) were conducted. The data is being analyzed with Qualitative Content Analysis (Schreier, according to Mayring). This methodology serves the purpose of looking systematically what is in the data. For this reason, MAXQDA is used to organize and analyze the data. Preliminary results show that network members were not mainly hierarchical organized, the existence of a division of labour and more or less cooperation and competitiveness between illicit drug dealing networks. Nevertheless, one of the main challenges of doing research on a legally limited area is the so called confirmation bias: what one finds depends on where and how one looks. Details: Paper presented at the Sixth Annual Conference of the International Society for the Study of Drug Policy Canterbury, UK, 30-31 May 2012. 17p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed September 14, 2017 at: http://www.issdp.org/conference-papers/2012/2012_papers/Tzanetakis%20M%20-%20A%20case%20study%20on%20an%20Austrian%20upper-level%20drug%20dealing%20network.pdf Year: 2012 Country: Europe URL: http://www.issdp.org/conference-papers/2012/2012_papers/Tzanetakis%20M%20-%20A%20case%20study%20on%20an%20Austrian%20upper-level%20drug%20dealing%20network.pdf Shelf Number: 147262 Keywords: Drug CartelsDrug Dealing Drug Markets Illicit Drugs |
Author: Murphy, Tommy E. Title: Following the Poppy Trail: Causes and Consequences of Mexican Drug Cartels Summary: We study the historical origins and consequences of Mexican cartels. We first trace the location of current cartels to the location of Chinese migration at the beginning of the XX century, and document that both events are strongly connected. We then use Chinese presence in 1930 as an instrument for cartel presence today. We find a positive link between cartel presence and good socioeconomic outcomes, such as lower marginalization rates, lower illiteracy rates, higher salaries, and better public services. We also report that municipalities with cartel presence have higher tax revenues and more political competition. Given that Chinese immigration at the end of the century was driven by elements largely exogenous to the drug trade, the link between cartel presence and good socioeconomic outcomes can be interpreted in a causal way. Previous research has shown that the presence of organized crime is associated with bad outcomes at the macro level (Pinotti, 2015) and has deep effects at individual level, making children more likely to be criminals in adulthood (Sviatschi, 2017a; 2017b). Our paper reconciles this previous literature with the fact that drug lords, the leaders of this particular form of organized crime, have great support in the local communities in which they operate. Details: Buenos Aires, Argentina: Universidad de San Andres, 2017. 60p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed January 17, 2018 at: ftp://webacademicos.udesa.edu.ar/pub/econ/doc130.pdf Year: 2017 Country: Mexico URL: ftp://webacademicos.udesa.edu.ar/pub/econ/doc130.pdf Shelf Number: 148851 Keywords: Drug CartelsDrug TraffickingDrug-Related ViolenceEconomics of CrimeOpium Poppy CultivationOrganized CrimeSocioeconomic Conditions and Crime |
Author: Coyne, John Title: 'Santa Muerte', are the Mexican cartels really coming? Summary: Whether in Mexico, the US or Australia, the image of the transnational serious and organised crime (OC) threat from 'Mexican cartels' used to construct policy doesn't appear to engage with the reality that there's no homogeneous Mexican cartel, cartels or OC group. In popular culture, the labels 'Mexican cartel' and 'street gang' conjure an image of a highly organised, hierarchically commanded and ultraviolent crime group. Even Mexico's infamous Sinaloa cartel, rumoured to have an increasingly ominous presence in Australia, is more an alliance of criminal figures than a hierarchical organisation. There should be little doubt that these groups, as a collective phenomenon, have consistently demonstrated a propensity to regularly use breathtakingly barbaric violence for revenge and intimidation. Unfortunately, popular characterisations of the structure and organisation of these groups does little justice to the complexity of the threat that they pose. These generalisations lack the necessary granularity to be useful in the development of disruption- and mitigation-focused strategies. For policymakers, it's convenient to conflate well-known US-based Mexican street gangs, transnational street gangs such as the 'Mexican Mafia' and transnational OC groups such as the 'Mexican cartels' into a singular homogeneous threat grouping or strategy: 'the cartels'. It's equally convenient to link all Mexican OC activity together with the cartel thread. With this kind of conflation, the seriousness of the threat at hand can clearly and concisely be communicated to government decision-makers in terms that will ensure funding and strategy responses. Frustration with the inability of law enforcement arrest and seizure strategies to undermine the drug trade and its associated OC has further complicated the policy decision-making in this space. In the US and Mexican governments' cases, it's likely that this frustration has underpinned government policy, thereby expanding the role of the military and intelligence agencies in the 'war on drugs'. Unfortunately, conflating these groups doesn't produce the kinds of policies and strategies that will result in operational activity that has long-term disruption impacts on the groups involved. Moreover, the current understanding arguably does not allow for the involvement and integration of enforcement operations with other whole-of-government social, economic and development strategies. This report argues that, for Australia and Asia, the menace of Mexican OC is no longer looming on the horizon; it has already arrived. However, the nature of the Mexican OC problem in Australia and Asia is not likely to be the same as that found in either the US or Mexico. To fully understand the implications of this development for Australia and the region, this threat needs to be viewed in context. Details: Barton, ACT, AUS: Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), 2017. 28p. Source: Internet Resource: accessed April 2, 2018 at: http://www.css.ethz.ch/content/dam/ethz/special-interest/gess/cis/center-for-securities-studies/resources/docs/ASPI-SR107_Mexican-cartels.pdf Year: 2017 Country: Australia URL: http://www.css.ethz.ch/content/dam/ethz/special-interest/gess/cis/center-for-securities-studies/resources/docs/ASPI-SR107_Mexican-cartels.pdf Shelf Number: 149648 Keywords: Drug CartelsDrug TraffickingDrug-Related ViolenceGang ViolenceMexican CartelsOrganized CrimeStreet Gangs |
Author: McDermott, Jeremy Title: The Changing Face of Colombian Organized Crime Summary: - Colombian organized crime, that once ran, unchallenged, the world's cocaine trade, today appears to be little more than a supplier to the Mexican cartels. Yet in the last ten years Colombian organized crime has undergone a profound metamorphosis. There are profound differences between the Medellin and Cali cartels and today's BACRIM. - The diminishing returns in moving cocaine to the US and the Mexican domination of this market have led to a rapid adaptation by Colombian groups that have diversified their criminal portfolios to make up the shortfall in cocaine earnings, and are exploiting new markets and diversifying routes to non-US destinations. The development of domestic consumption of cocaine and its derivatives in some Latin American countries has prompted Colombian organized crime to establish permanent presence and structures abroad. - This changes in the dynamics of organized crime in Colombia also changed the structure of the groups involved in it. Today the fundamental unit of the criminal networks that form the BACRIM is the "oficina de cobro", usually a financially self-sufficient node, part of a network that functions like a franchise. In this new scenario, cooperation and negotiation are preferred to violence, which is bad for business. - Colombian organized crime has proven itself not only resilient but extremely quick to adapt to changing conditions. The likelihood is that Colombian organized crime will continue the diversification of its criminal portfolio, but assuming an ever lower, more discrete profile and operating increasingly abroad. Details: Berlin: Friedrich Ebert Sstiftung, 2014. 14p. Source: Internet Resource: Perspectivas 9/2014: Accessed April 26, 2018 at: http://library.fes.de/pdf-files/bueros/la-seguridad/11153.pdf Year: 2014 Country: Colombia URL: http://library.fes.de/pdf-files/bueros/la-seguridad/11153.pdf Shelf Number: 149898 Keywords: Drug CartelsDrug Trafficking Human Trafficking Organized Crime |
Author: U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Title: (U) United States: Areas of Influence of Major Mexican Transnational Criminal Organizations Summary: (U) Overview (U) Mexican transnational criminal organizations (TCOs) pose the greatest criminal drug threat to the United States; no other group is currently positioned to challenge them. These Mexican poly-drug organizations traffic heroin, methamphetamine, cocaine, and marijuana throughout the United States, using established transportation routes and distribution networks. They control drug trafficking across the Southwest Border and are moving to expand their share, particularly in the heroin and methamphetamine markets. (U) Background (U) These maps reflect data from the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF) Consolidated Priority Organization Target (CPOT) program to depict the areas of influence in the United States for major Mexican cartels (see Figure 1). A review of Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) information on Mexican CPOTs as of May 2015, identified the following cartels that operate cells within the United States: the Sinaloa Cartel, Gulf Cartel, Juarez Cartel, Knights Templar (Los Caballeros Templarios or LCT), Beltran-Leyva Organization (BLO), Jalisco New Generation Cartel (Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generacion or CJNG), Los Zetas, and Las Moicas. The pie charts seen on the maps show the percentage of cases attributed to specific Mexican cartels in an individual DEA office area of responsibility. Details: Washington, DC: DEA, 2015. 4p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed May 18, 2018 at: https://www.dea.gov/docs/dir06515.pdf Year: 2015 Country: United States URL: https://www.dea.gov/docs/dir06515.pdf Shelf Number: 150265 Keywords: Criminal Networks Criminal Organizations Drug CartelsDrug Trafficking Mexican Cartels Organized Crime |
Author: La Rosa, Lucy Title: The New Generation: Mexico's Emerging Organized Crime Threat Summary: Over the past decade, more than 200,000 people have been murdered in Mexico, including the record 29,000 murders that occurred in 2017 alone. While there are complex underlying factors behind every individual homicide, a substantial portion of Mexico's recent violence is attributable to organized crime groups. In an effort to reduce the operational capabilities of these groups, the government of Mexico has responded to this crisis with a deliberate strategy to target top organized crime figures for arrest and even extradition. In January 2017, these efforts culminated in the downfall of famed drug trafficker, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, who was extradited to the United States and is currently preparing to stand trial for various related crimes in New York. One of the unintended consequences of Guzman's downfall has been an increase in homicides to unprecedented levels. Following Guzman's removal as the purported head of the Sinaloa Cartel, one of Mexico's most powerful criminal organizations, splinter groups and rival organizations have competed to take over the lucrative drug trafficking routes he formerly controlled. One group that has been behind much of this violence is a relatively new organized crime syndicate known as the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generacion, CJNG), an offshoot of the Sinaloa Cartel that has managed to re-brand itself, consolidate splintered criminal networks, and emerge as one of the most powerful drug trafficking organizations in Mexico. Details: San Diego: Justice in Mexico, 2018. 28p. Source: Internet Resource: Policy Brief: Accessed June 20, 2018 at: https://justiceinmexico.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/180319-Policy_Brief-CJNG.pdf Year: 2018 Country: Mexico URL: https://justiceinmexico.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/180319-Policy_Brief-CJNG.pdf Shelf Number: 150594 Keywords: Criminal NetworksDrug CartelsDrug TraffickingHomicidesOrganized CrimeTrafficking Drugs |
Author: Beittel, June S. Title: Mexico: Organized Crime and Drug Trafficking Organizations Summary: The notorious drug trafficking kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman is now imprisoned in the United States awaiting trial, following the Mexican government's decision to extradite him to the United States on January 19, 2017, the day before President Trump took office. Guzman is charged with operating a continuing criminal enterprise and conducting drug-related crimes as the purported leader of the Mexican criminal syndicate commonly known as the Sinaloa cartel. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) maintains that the Sinaloa cartel has the widest reach into U.S. cities of any transnational criminal organization. In November 2016, in its National Drug Threat Assessment, the DEA stated that Mexican drug trafficking groups are working to expand their presence, particularly in the heroin markets inside the United States. Over the years, Mexico"s criminal groups have trafficked heroin, methamphetamine, cocaine, marijuana, and increasingly the powerful synthetic opioid fentanyl. Mexico's drug trafficking organizations (DTOs) have been in constant flux. By some accounts, in 2006, there were four dominant DTOs: the Tijuana/Arellano Felix organization (AFO), the Sinaloa cartel, the Juarez/Vicente Carillo Fuentes organization (CFO), and the Gulf cartel. Since then, the more stable large organizations have fractured. In recent years, the DEA has identified the following organizations as dominant: Sinaloa, Los Zetas, Tijuana/AFO, Juarez/CFO, Beltran Leyva, Gulf, and La Familia Michoacana. In some sense, these organizations might be viewed as the "traditional" DTOs, although the 7 organizations appear to have fragmented to at least 9 (or as many as 20) major organizations. New crime groups have emerged since the December 2012 inauguration of Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto, who has faced an increasingly complex crime situation. The major DTOs and new crime groups have furthered their expansion into such illicit activity as extortion, kidnapping for ransom, and oil syphoning, posing a governance challenge to President Pena Nieto as daunting as that faced by his predecessors. Former Mexican President Felipe Calderon (2006-2012) initiated an aggressive campaign against Mexico's drug traffickers that was a defining policy of his government and one that the DTOs violently resisted. Operations to eliminate DTO leaders sparked organizational change, which led to significant instability among the groups and continued violence. Such violence appears to be rising again in Mexico. In January 2017, the country registered more homicides than in any January since the government began to release national crime data in the late 1980s. In a single weekend in April 2017, more than 35 died in what was assumed to be drug trafficking-related violence. Although the Mexican government no longer estimates organized crime-related homicides, some independent analysts have claimed that murders linked to organized crime may have exceeded 100,000 since 2006, when President Calderon began his campaign against the DTOs. Mexico's government reported that the annual number of all homicides in Mexico declined after Calderon left office in 2012 by about 16% in 2013 and 15% in 2014, only to rise in 2015 and 2016. In 2016, the Mexican government reported a 22% increase in all homicides to 22,932, almost reaching the high point of nearly 23,000 murders in 2011, Mexico's most violent year. The 115th Congress remains concerned about security conditions inside Mexico and the illicit drug trade. The Mexican DTOs are the major wholesalers of illegal drugs in the United States and are increasingly gaining control of U.S. retail-level distribution. This report examines how the organized crime landscape has been significantly altered by fragmentation and how the organizational shape-shifting continues Details: Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, 2017. 32p. Source: Internet Resource: R41576: Accessed June 29, 2018 at: https://fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R41576.pdf Year: 2017 Country: Mexico URL: https://fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R41576.pdf Shelf Number: 150740 Keywords: Drug CartelsDrug TraffickingDrug ViolenceDrug-Related ViolenceHomicidesIllegal DrugsOrganized CrimeViolence |
Author: Beittel, June S. Title: Mexico: Organized Crime and Drug Trafficking Organizations Summary: Mexican drug trafficking organizations (DTOs) pose the greatest crime threat to the United States, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration's (DEA's) National Drug Threat Assessment published in October 2017. These organizations have for years been identified for their strong links to drug trafficking, money laundering, and other violent crimes. These criminal groups have trafficked heroin, methamphetamine, cocaine, marijuana, and, increasingly, the powerful synthetic opioid fentanyl. U.S. overdoses due to opioid consumption sharply increased to a record level in 2016, following the Mexican criminal syndicates expanded control of the heroin and synthetic opioids market. The major DTOs and new crime groups have furthered their expansion into such illicit activity as extortion, kidnapping, and oil theft that costs the government's oil company more than a billion dollars a year. Mexico's DTOs have also been in constant flux. Early in his term, former Mexican President Felipe Calderon (2006-2012) initiated an aggressive campaign against Mexico's drug traffickers that was a defining policy of his government and one that the DTOs violently resisted. By some accounts, in 2006, there were four dominant DTOs: the Tijuana/Arellano Felix organization (AFO), the Sinaloa cartel, the Juarez/Vicente Carillo Fuentes organization (CFO), and the Gulf cartel. Government operations to eliminate DTO leadership sparked organizational changes, which led to significant instability among the groups and continued violence. In recent years, larger and more stable organizations have fractured, leaving the DEA and other analysts to identify seven organizations as predominant: Sinaloa, Los Zetas, Tijuana/AFO, Juarez/CFO, Beltran Leyva, Gulf, and La Familia Michoacana. In some sense, these organizations include the "traditional" DTOs, although the 7 organizations appear to have fragmented further to at least 9 (or as many as 20) major organizations. A new transnational criminal organization, Cartel Jalisco-New Generation, which split from Sinaloa in 2010, has sought to become dominant with brutally violent techniques. During the term of President Enrique Peea Nieto that will end in 2018, the government has faced an increasingly complex crime situation that saw violence spike. In 2017, Mexico reached its highest number of total intentional homicides in a year, exceeding, by some counts, 29,000 murders. In the 2017-2018 election period that opened in September 2017 and ran through June 12, 2018, 114 candidates and politicians were killed allegedly by crime bosses and others in an effort to intimidate public office holders, according to a security consultancy that tracks these homicides. On July 1, 2018, Andres Manuel Lopez Obredor won the election for President by as much as 30 points over the next contender. He leads a new party, Morena, but has served as Mayor of Mexico City and comes from a leftist ideological viewpoint. Lopez Obredor campaigned on fighting corruption and finding new ways to combat crime and manage the illicit drug trade. U.S. foreign assistance for Mexico in the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2018 (P.L. 115-141) totaled $152.6 million, with more than $100 million of that funding focused on rule of law and counternarcotics efforts. The 115th Congress pursued oversight of security conditions inside of Mexico and monitored the Mexican criminal organizations not only because they are the major wholesalers of illegal drugs in the United States but also to appraise their growing control of U.S. retail-level distribution. This report examines how the organized crime landscape in Mexico has been altered by fragmentation of criminal groups and how the organizational shape-shifting continues. Details: Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, 2018. 32p. Source: Internet Resource: R41576: Accessed )ctober 22, 2018 at: https://fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R41576.pdf Year: 2018 Country: Mexico URL: https://fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R41576.pdf Shelf Number: 153043 Keywords: Drug CartelsDrug TraffickingDrug ViolenceDrug-Related ViolenceHomicidesIllegal DrugsOrganized CrimeViolence |
Author: Ashby, Paul Title: NAFTA-land Security: The Merida Initiative, Transnational Threats, and U.S. Security Projection in Mexico Summary: This thesis explores recent U.S. bilateral aid to Mexico through the Merida Initiative (MI), a $2.3 billion assistance commitment on the part of the United States (U.S.) officially justified as helping Mexico build its capacity to take on violent drug cartels and thereby improve security in both countries. There has been a good amount of engaging work on the MI. However this extant literature has not undertaken detailed policy analysis of the aid programme, leading to conclusions that it is a fresh approach to the Mexican counternarcotics (CN) challenge, or that CN is a 'fig leaf' for the U.S. to pursue other 'real' goals. This is a core gap in the literature this project seeks to fill. Through policy analysis, I make an empirically supported argument that Merida is a component of a far more ambitious policy agenda to regionalise security with Mexico more generally. This involves stabilising Mexico itself, not least in response to serious drug-related violence. However the U.S. also aims to improve its own security by giving greater 'depth' to its borders, and seeks protect the political economy of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) from variegated security threats. In this way, recent U.S. policy in Mexico is both derivative of its wider grand strategic traditions in stabilising key political economies in line with its interests, and representative of some distinct developments stemming from the deeply integrated U.S.-Mexican economy as part of NAFTA. To assure U.S. interests accrued to it through the increasingly holistic North American economy, the U.S. has used the MI as the main vehicle in the construction of a nascent 'NAFTA-land Security' framework. Details: Canterbury, UK: University of Kent, 2015. 322p. Source: Internet Resource: Dissertation: Accessed October 24, 2018 at: https://kar.kent.ac.uk/48367/ Year: 2014 Country: Mexico URL: https://kar.kent.ac.uk/48367/ Shelf Number: 153069 Keywords: Drug CartelsDrug TraffickingDrug-Related ViolenceHomeland SecurityMerida InitiativeOrganized CrimeWar on Drugs |
Author: U.S. Department of Justice. Drug Enforcement Administration Title: 2018 National Drug Threat Assessment Summary: The 2018 National Drug Threat Assessment (NDTA)1 is a comprehensive strategic assessment of the threat posed to the United States by domestic and international drug trafficking and the abuse of illicit drugs. The report combines federal, state, local, and tribal law enforcement reporting; public health data; open source reporting; and intelligence from other government agencies to determine which substances and criminal organizations represent the greatest threat to the United States. Illicit drugs, as well as the transnational and domestic criminal organizations who traffic them, continue to represent significant threats to public health, law enforcement, and national security in the United States. Drug poisoning deaths are the leading cause of injury death in the United States; they are currently at their highest ever recorded level and, every year since 2011, have outnumbered deaths by firearms, motor vehicle crashes, suicide, and homicide. In 2016, approximately 174 people died every day from drug poisoning (see Figure 1). The opioid threat (controlled prescription drugs, synthetic opioids, and heroin) has reached epidemic levels and currently shows no signs of abating, affecting large portions of the United States. Meanwhile, as the ongoing opioid crisis justly receives national attention, the methamphetamine threat remains prevalent; the cocaine threat has rebounded; new psychoactive substances (NPS) are still challenging; and the domestic marijuana situation continues to evolve. Controlled Prescription Drugs (CPDs): CPDs are still responsible for the most drug-involved overdose deaths and are the second most commonly abused substance in the United States. As CPD abuse has increased significantly, traffickers are now disguising other opioids as CPDs in attempts to gain access to new users. Most individuals who report misuse of prescription pain relievers cite physical pain as the most common reason for abuse; these misused pain relievers are most frequently obtained from a friend or relative. Heroin: Heroin use and availability continue to increase in the United States. The occurrence of heroin mixed with fentanyl is also increasing. Mexico remains the primary source of heroin available in the United States according to all available sources of intelligence, including law enforcement investigations and scientific data. Further, significant increases in opium poppy cultivation and heroin production in Mexico allow Mexican TCOs to supply high-purity, low-cost heroin, even as U.S. demand has continued to increase. Fentanyl and Other Synthetic Opioids: Illicit fentanyl and other synthetic opioids - primarily sourced from China and Mexico - are now the most lethal category of opioids used in the United States. Traffickers- wittingly or unwittingly- are increasingly selling fentanyl to users without mixing it with any other controlled substances and are also increasingly selling fentanyl in the form of counterfeit prescription pills. Fentanyl suppliers will continue to experiment with new fentanyl-related substances and adjust supplies in attempts to circumvent new regulations imposed by the United States, China, and Mexico. Cocaine: Cocaine availability and use in the United States have rebounded, in large part due to the significant increases in coca cultivation and cocaine production in Colombia. As a result, past-year cocaine initiates and cocaine-involved overdose deaths are exceeding 2007 benchmark levels. Simultaneously, the increasing presence of fentanyl in the cocaine supply, likely related to the ongoing opioid crisis, is exacerbating the re-merging cocaine threat. Methamphetamine: Methamphetamine remains prevalent and widely available, with most of the methamphetamine available in the United States being produced in Mexico and smuggled across the Southwest Border (SWB). Domestic production occurs at much lower levels than in Mexico, and seizures of domestic methamphetamine laboratories have declined steadily for many years. Marijuana: Marijuana remains the most commonly used illicit drug in the United States. The overall landscape continues to evolve; although still illegal under Federal law, more states have passed legislation regarding the possession, use, and cultivation of marijuana and its associated products. Although seizure amounts coming across the SWB have decreased in recent years, Mexico remains the most significant foreign source for marijuana available in the United States. Domestic marijuana production continues to increase, as does the availability and production of marijuana-related products. New Psychoactive Substances (NPS): The number of new NPS continues to increase worldwide, but remains a limited threat in the United States compared to other widely available illicit drugs. China remains the primary source for the synthetic cannabinoids and synthetic cathinones that are trafficked into the United States. The availability and popularity of specific NPS in the United States continues to change every year, as traffickers experiment with new and unregulated substances. Mexican Transnational Criminal Organizations (TCOs): Mexican TCOs remain the greatest criminal drug threat to the United States; no other group is currently positioned to challenge them. The Sinaloa Cartel maintains the most expansive footprint in the United States, while Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generacion's (CJNG) domestic presence has significantly expanded in the past few years. Although 2017 drug-related murders in Mexico surpassed previous levels of violence, U.S.-based Mexican TCO members generally refrain from extending inter-cartel conflicts domestically. Colombian TCOs: Colombian TCOs' majority control over the production and supply of cocaine to Mexican TCOs allows Colombian TCOs to maintain an indirect influence on U.S. drug markets. Smaller Colombian TCOs still directly supply wholesale quantities of cocaine and heroin to Northeast and East Coast drug markets. Dominican TCOs: Dominican TCOs dominate the mid-level distribution of cocaine and white powder heroin in major drug markets throughout the Northeast, and predominate at the highest levels of the heroin and fentanyl trade in certain areas of the region. They also engage in some street-level sales. Dominican TCOs work in collaboration with foreign suppliers to have cocaine and heroin shipped directly to the continental United States and its territories from Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela, and the Dominican Republic. Family members and friends of Dominican nationality or American citizens of Dominican descent comprise the majority of Dominican TCOs, insulating them from outside threats. Asian TCOs: Asian TCOs specialize in international money laundering by transferring funds to and from China and Hong Kong through the use of front companies and other money laundering methods. Asian TCOs continue to operate indoor marijuana grow houses in states with legal personal-use marijuana laws and also remain the 3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA, commonly known as Ecstasy) source of supply in U.S. markets by trafficking MDMA from clandestine laboratories in Canada into the United States. Gangs: National and neighborhood-based street gangs and prison gangs continue to dominate the market for the street-sales and distribution of illicit drugs in their respective territories throughout the country. Struggle for control of these lucrative drug trafficking territories continues to be the largest factor fueling the street-gang violence facing local communities. Meanwhile, some street gangs are working in conjunction with rival gangs in order to increase their drug revenues, while individual members of assorted street gangs have profited by forming relationships with friends and family associated with Mexican cartels. Illicit Finance: TCOs' primary methods for laundering illicit proceeds have largely remained the same over the past several years. However, the amount of bulk cash seized has been steadily decreasing. This is a possible indication of TCOs' increasing reliance on innovative money laundering methods. Virtual currencies, such as Bitcoin, are becoming increasingly mainstream and offer traffickers a relatively secure method for moving illicit proceeds around the world with much less risk compared to traditional methods. Details: Washington, DC: DEA, 2018. 164p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed November 14, 2018 at: https://www.dea.gov/sites/default/files/2018-11/DIR-032-18%202018%20NDTA%20final%20low%20resolution.pdf Year: 2018 Country: United States URL: https://www.dea.gov/sites/default/files/2018-11/DIR-032-18%202018%20NDTA%20final%20low%20resolution.pdf Shelf Number: 153464 Keywords: Drug Abuse and Addiction Drug CartelsDrug Enforcement Drug Trafficking GangsIllicit DrugsOpioid CrisisOrganized Crime |
Author: InSight Crime Title: Criminal Game Changers 2018 Summary: Welcome to InSight Crime's Criminal GameChangers 2018, where we highlight the most important trends in organized crime in the Americas over the course of the year. From a rise in illicit drug availability and resurgence of monolithic criminal groups to the weakening of anti-corruption efforts and a swell in militarized responses to crime, 2018 was a year in which political issues were still often framed as left or right, but the only ideology that mattered was organized crime. Some of the worst news came from Colombia, where coca and cocaine production reached record highs amidst another year of bad news regarding the historic peace agreement with the region's oldest political insurgency, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia - FARC). The demobilization of ex-FARC members has been plagued by government ineptitude, corruption, human rights violations, and accusations of top guerrilla leaders' involvement in the drug trade. And it may have contributed directly and indirectly to the surge in coca and cocaine production. It was during this tumult that Colombia elected right wing politician Ivan Duque in May. Duque is the protege of former president and current Senator Alvaro Uribe. Their alliance could impact not just what's left of the peace agreement but the entire structure of the underworld where, during 2018, ex-FARC dissidents reestablished criminal fiefdoms or allied themselves with other criminal factions; and the last remaining rebel group, the National Liberation Army (Ejercito de Liberacion Nacional - ELN), filled power vacuums in Colombia and neighboring Venezuela, making it one of our three criminal winners this year. Meanwhile, a new generation of traffickers emerged, one that prefers anonymity to the large, highly visible armies of yesteryear. Also of note in 2018 was a surge in synthetic drugs, most notably fentanyl. The synthetic opioid powered a scourge that led to more overdose deaths in the United States than any other drug. Fentanyl is no longer consumed as a replacement for heroin. It is now hidden in counterfeit prescription pills and mixed into cocaine and other legacy drugs. It is produced in Communist-ruled China and while much of it moves through the US postal system, some of it travels through Mexico on its way to the United States. During 2018, the criminal groups in Mexico seemed to be shifting their operations increasingly around it, especially given its increasing popularity, availability, and profitability. The result is some new possibly game changing alliances, most notably between Mexican and Dominican criminal organizations. Among these Mexican criminal groups is the Jalisco Cartel New Generation (Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generacion - CJNG), another of our three criminal winners for 2018. The CJNG has avoided efforts to weaken it with a mix of sophisticated public relations, military tactics and the luck of circumstance - the government has simply been distracted. That is not the say it is invulnerable. The group took some big hits in its epicenter in 2018, and the US authorities put it on its radar, unleashing a series of sealed indictments against the group. Mexico's cartels battled each other even as they took advantage of booming criminal economies. The result was manifest in the record high in homicides this year. The deterioration in security opened the door to the July election of leftist candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. AMLO, as he is affectionately known, did not necessary run on security issues, but he may have won on them, and in the process, inherited a poisoned security chalice from his predecessor. While Pena Nieto can claim to have arrested or killed 110 of 122 criminal heads, AMLO faces closer to a thousand would-be leaders and hundreds of criminal groups.... Details: s.l.: Insight Crime, 2019. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed March 25, 2019 at: https://www.insightcrime.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/CRIMINAL-GAMECHANGERS-2018-InSight-Crime.pdf Year: 2019 Country: Latin America URL: https://www.insightcrime.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/CRIMINAL-GAMECHANGERS-2018-InSight-Crime.pdf Shelf Number: 155157 Keywords: CocaineCriminal NetworksDrug CartelsDrug TraffickingFentanylIllicit DrugsOpioidsOrganized CrimeWar on Drugs |
Author: Utar, Hale Title: Firms and Labor in Times of Violence: Evidence from the Mexican Drug War Summary: Violence in Mexico has reached unprecedented levels in recent times. After the government began a crackdown on drug cartels, nation-wide homicides almost tripled between 2006 and 2010. Using rich longitudinal plant-level data, this paper studies the impact of violent conflict on firms, exploiting this period of heightened violence in Mexico commonly referred to as the Mexican Drug War. The empirical strategy uses spatiotemporal variation in violence across Mexican cities and an instrumental variable strategy that relies on the triggers of the Drug War against potential endogeneity of the violence surge. It controls for observable and unobservable differences across cities and firms as well as for product-specific business cycles. The results show significant negative impact of the surge in violence on plants' output, product scope, employment and capacity utilization. Violence acts as a negative blue-collar labor supply shock, leading to significant increase in skill-intensity within firms. It also deters domestic, but not international, trade. The effect of the violence shock on firms is very heterogeneous, the output effect of violence increases with reliance on local demand, local sourcing and the employment effect of violence is stronger on plants with higher share of intensity of female employment and lower-wage. The results reveal significant distortive effects of the Mexican Drug War on domestic industrial development in Mexico and suggest that the Drug War accounted for the majority of the aggregate decline in manufacturing employment over 2007-2010. Details: Munich: CESifo Working Group, 2018. 75p. Source: Internet Resource: CESifo Working Paper No. 7345: Accessed May 14, 2019 at: http://www.cesifo-group.de/DocDL/cesifo1_wp7345.pdf Year: 2019 Country: Mexico URL: http://www.cesifo-group.de/DocDL/cesifo1_wp7345.pdf Shelf Number: 155835 Keywords: Drug CartelsDrug Trafficking Drug War Organized Crime Violence Violent Crime War on Drugs |