Cocaine Cowboys - Mexico Edition

I recently watched a documentary film called "Cocaine Cowboys." It chronicles the rise of the cocaine trade in Miami in the 1970s and 1980s. Fascinating film that I highly recommend. It interviews a few of the key players, some - two American transporters - who where released from long prison sentences in 2004, another - a Columbian hit-man - who is still serving a life sentence. The most fascinating part to me was that through the 70s and earliest part of the 80s, these people - mostly Columbians and Cubans, with some American help - were importing billions of dollars of cocaine a month almost unstopped and undetected. The high-rise, high-class Miami you see today was funded almost entirely by this drug money of the 1970s. The trade could have continued unabated today if it wasn't for the murders that started to happen in the 80s. Turns out the Columbians went crazy and ruined it for themselves. They just started killing each other...in public, in night clubs, in late night raids, en masse sparing no woman or child. The feds didn't really show up until the murders started occuring.

Which brings me to present day Northern Mexico. I was forwarded another article about the drug wars going on in Northern Baja and some of the fallout on American tourists. The article reports on an uncovered DEA document that states,

"since 2005, one-thousand people have been kidnapped in Mexico, while 43 are known to have died and many have disappeared. In Tijuana alone, in just the first half of last year, 91 kidnappings were reported -- roughly one victim every other day, according to the report."

The article concludes that the violent inter-gang killings has resulted in a violent fight for power, the robbing of tourists and the emergence of kidnapping as a lucrative alternative to drug running. The kidnappers are earning an estimated $6 million per month and have made Mexico home to the most number of kidnappings in Latin America - recently surpassing Columbia.

If we are witnessing a rerun of the Cocaine Cowboys, it seems to have regenerated in a more violent, and more destructive form. In the Miami wars, drug cartels targeted each other for control over the drug trade, and bystanders were often caught in the middle. Now, the bystanders - the tourists, surfers, lobster seekers, retired folks buying cheap prescription drugs, underage drinkers - are the targets.

The movie ends with most of the old cartel people dying or getting arrested. The corrupt and complicit Dade county police department was cleaned out. How this one will end I have no idea. To be sure, the Mexican tourist industry will suffer severely. This could be the only thing to motivate Mexican authorities to get their act together and clean out their own corrupt and complicit security agencies. Or, a more likely scenario is that this will blow over. The kidnappings and drug killings will calm down after a dominant cartel wins out, the drug trade will continue, and the tourists will return.

War on Drugs Update - SoCal Up to no Good

Silly frat kids - This is a fascinating tale of idiocy coming out of San Diego State University. 96 people were arrested, $100,000 worth of drugs were seized, as well as 4 guns, from the Theta Chi fraternity after an undercover drug bust. Best line of the article, "They weren't picky about who they sold to," he said, alleging that undercover officers would simply call them and say, " 'Hey, I heard you deal. Will you sell to me?' "And they did." Frat nerds + drug dealing = extraordinary studity every time. I remember a story from when I was at UCLA that some kid in a fraternity was dealing drugs when no one in his house even knew. That is, until 2 guys showed up at his door with sawed-off shot guns, tied him up and robbed him blind in the light of day.

And a few more stories from south of the border. It appears that the hit-squad division of one of the largest drug cartels in the Gulf region, Los Zetas, is recruiting new employees (might not be a bad place to start looking for us job seeking graduates). And they are doing it in a particularly brazen way...by hanging huge banners and posting signs around border towns that they are hiring. The signs offer food, training, health care and education for families, and good pay (up to $5,000 per week). Unfortunately, it seems that they are looking for ex-military and military deserters, so I may not qualify. They even list phone numbers for interested parties to contact, which the authorities believe are legit.

And about 2 weeks ago, a shootout between rival drug gangs left 15 people dead in the streets of Tijuana(the article says 13, but 2 more have since died). The article can't actually pinpoint exactly who was involved, but speculations range from gang vs. gang, gang vs. informants, and gang vs. undercover police.

What both articles point to is that the surging brazenness and violence coming from the Mexican drug industry is a direct response to increased efforts on the part of the Mexican military (with U.S. money and advice) to fight back against the drug cartels. In times of extreme irony I like to invoke song lyrics. Wilco's song War on War goes...

Its a War on War
Its a War on War
Its a War on War
Its a War on War

Your gonna lose
You have to loo-oo-oo-oose
You have to learn how to die-ie-ie
If you wanna-wanna stay alive

War on Drugs - Is that still going on?

A bout of drug related violence in Baja California was reported on in late December 2007, so this is not a breaking story really. I am only writing on it now because I was going to write a feature on it for my former employer, The Globalist, but it died on the vine because my boss is an ass and opted for some interviews conducted by his 16 year old son. Also because I am considering going down there again during my spring break.

To sum it up, there have been a few cases of surfing going down there and getting violently assaulted and robbed. On top of that, some gangsters wielding assault rifles shot up the Rosarito Beach police station and killed a police officer when they were trying to kill a town's top security official. Read Strategic Forecasting's Mexico security analysis for a rather exhaustive, and chilling, recap of some recent violence in Mexico in general (You have to register, but I recommend giving up your email address for their free content). But in my experience. Baja's coast is a relatively peaceful place, believe it or not. I have gone down there countless times and never encountered so much as a pick pocket. This includes Tijuana.

To say the least I am reconsidering Baja for my vacation. Aside from holiday considerations, the increase in both incidences and the fire power wielded by the drug gangs is concerning because it falls on the heels of the so called "Plan Mexico," a drug enforcement plan akin to the abysmal failure "Plan Columbia." The lengths that drug cartels are willing to go to protect their supply chain and markets is much more than any government agency is capable of preventing.

Drug policy seems to be off the radar for the upcoming presidential elections. It is possible that this will provide the next president to have more room to maneuver and will result in a less draconian approach to narcotics. Most likely, not a lot will change however. We will continue to incarcerate countless non-violent offenders and waste countless dollars because even if the next president has the balls to bring it up on the national agenda, he (or she) will be fighting against 35 years of an entrenched institution. Since Nixon's launched his war on drugs in 1971, no president has attempted to change course and bring reason to the issue, and I don't expect that the next one will.