Pen and Pad with Napolitano

In a recent pen and pad secession with DHS Chief Janet Napolitano, a journalist asked a very good question:

Is that part of the problem, Madam Secretary, that the Mexico portfolio, you know, touches on so many agencies? Is the Administration at all thinking about housing them all, you know, particularly, you know, security, so that it’s not State and Department of Justice and Homeland Security but sort of creating a Mexico Security Czar?

This is entirely true. We have the DHS coming in with CBP and ICE. There is the DOJ with the DEA, the FBI, and the ATF. There is the DOS, which runs the Merida Initiative, and there is the White House - where an number of Obama-backed initiatives are born and passed along to others to implement.

Her answer:

You know, I don’t know about that. I mean a lot of the issues I deal with involve many agencies. I mean that’s just the problems of today don’t really match up with government, you know, organizations of — that we have in a way. They — they — and so one of my tasks is to be able to work with my colleagues on the Cabinet, with the White House, and with others and to recognize, you know, there are things Homeland Security will be doing, there are things that are going to impact the Department of State, impact DOJ and so forth, and that’s — that’s — you know, that — that’s the effort that’s going on now, is to make sure that we all know what each other is doing and are speaking with a consistent voice.

But — but if I had to sum up where we are, it’s that this issue’s getting top attention in multiple departments of the U.S., that planning is well underway and that we are having extensive discussions with our federal colleagues within Mexico and it is really focused on assisting the Mexican Government with their fight against the cartels. One facet of that assistance is looking at what we can do to stop cash and guns, and you guys didn’t ask me about cash which is kind of interesting, from going south.

One aspect of it is supporting our state and local law enforcement along the border and being ever prepared to respond with more resources should we see spill-over violence in the way I described it to you occurring...

I don't think a Mexican Drug Czar is the answer, but we can certainly make sure that the lines separating different agencies stay in place.

Operation Armas Cruzadas, the anti-gun smuggling program operated by ICE, is a good example. ICE agents are not arms experts. They are not well equipped to build a solid case against errant arms dealers, and they don't have the local knowledge (in places like Arizona and Texas) where most arms are legally purchased before slipping into the gray market.

With the exception of the X Caliber case (see below post), which was a fluke, the ATF has long demonstrated expertise when combatting gun smuggling. When ICE comes in with its own arms smuggling operation, it muddies the waters, creates conflict on the ground among agents, and further complicates the mission. This is just one example. Moving forward, I would argue that the one item that will most quickly deep six our efforts to control the border, to stop arms and cash from moving south, and to stop drugs from coming north, will be our inability to manage one large communications nightmare between so many agencies.

S*#t Hit the Fan

On 18 March, a judge dismissed the charges against a Phoenix gun dealer accused of helping move weapons south to Mexico to arm the drug trafficking organizations.

Details are here and here.

I blurred the edges of the photo to cover identification tags on the weapons.

I was in the ATF office in Phoenix on Monday, and some of the guys were talking about testifying later in the week. The trial was big news with these guys, and many of them had worked hard to bring this errant gun dealer to justice. From what I read and heard off the record, I was convinced that the prosecutor had an airtight case. Then a judge throws the case out because there was not enough evidence to lead to a conviction. This is a shot in the gut for the ATF and the US government. Even when a solid case is presented in court, these guys still can't get a break. The case will go to appeal, but I'm not hopeful there will be an overturn on the judge's decision. We'll see.

The Locals of Douglas/Agua Prieta

Agua Prieta, Sonora - just across the border from Douglas, Az - is perhaps the only Mexican border town that hasn't seen astronomical violence.

Even in the next town over, in Naco, men find time to corner one another and spray pick ups with hundreds of bullets.

But not in Agua Prieta. This is a town where everyone knows the name "El Chapo" - the head of the so-called Sinaloa Cartel - and no one knows the name "Calderón" - the president of Mexico.

El Chapo keeps a strong grip on Agua Prieta, preventing all but what many consider a normal level of violence.

About a year and a half ago, there were a few days when local cops found bodies here and there, but that was soon over. It was more of a message to anyone even thinking about trying to take over Agua Prieta: just keep thinking.

The locals in Douglas don't know much about gun smuggling. And they don't know much about the violence that rages across Mexico. Many of them get on with their daily lives, interestingly unaware of what's going on just to the east in El Paso/Juarez, or to the west in Nogales.

There is one local, however, who knows more about gun smuggling across the Douglas border than anyone else. He owns the only gun store in town.

"I get five thousand dollar bribes every week," he told me yesterday as an opening statement to what turned out to be a 45 minute monologue on why he keeps to the law and how the guys at the ATF - Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms - won't leave him alone.

And with good reason. While staying well within the law, he can sell all the ammunition he wants to corrupt Mexican cops. Its such a large loophole that the ATF has asked him nicely not to sell to the Mexican cops.

Within the law, he can sell as many "long guns" as he wants. These are the so-called "weapons of choice" - the AR-15 variations and AK-47s.

About a year ago, he sold between five and ten long guns to a couple guys - nothing illegal about it - and some of the guns were used in Naco at a shoot out. When the guns traced back to his shop, the ATF agents on the case could only get the name and information of the men who bought the guns, but not the men who smuggled them across the border. This gray area - called the gray market - is where the legal trail ends, and the black market begins. Again, the gun dealer is just running a business.

If a guy comes into the store, obviously a gang banger or an otherwise sketchy individual, and wants to buy a gun, there's nothing the gun dealer can do if the guy checks out. Refusing a sale might get the gun dealer into trouble, especially if the customer wants to start talking about discrimination.

Back at the Border Mart, there is no talk of guns or drugs, really. People come and go, and "coyotes", known as "polleros" or chicken herders, often come in for a quick stop after a long day of smuggling people into the US.

Today, I'm heading back into Agua Prieta to learn more about how and why this town has managed through the recent trying times of violence, the economy, and a new feeling from the gringos who don't seem to want them any more.

Maybe I'll find someone who knows the president's name, not Obama (everyone knows him) but Calderón.

Hiding guns in a massive load...

In Tucson, I recently spoke with some of the men who work the trenches, fighting gun smuggling south, from Arizona to Mexico. On the road from Phoenix to Tucson, I pass three separate trucks that exemplified what they said was a nightmare for Border Patrol and a boon for smugglers. Feats of engineering and twine-supported balance and load capacity that astounds . Many BP agents will not stop these guys because it would take their whole shift just to unload and search these vehicles. Meanwhile, smugglers know that they can wrap up a few guns at the bottom, in the middle, and pass on through...

I took this photo just a few hours ago, southbound on I-10, headed to Tucson - about 4 hours away from the border.

Headed to the Border

I'm headed tonight to the US/Mx. border in Arizona to investigate tunnel technology, Border Patrol search and rescue, Project 28, death in the desert, open air gun shows, and drug addiction.

Blogging will be limited until 21 March.

For now, I'll share a photo I received today: one of the largest weapons seizures in Mexican history.

Escalation and IEDs in Mexico

Rocket and grenade launchers, high powered machine guns, .50 caliber Barrett sniper rifles, and fragmentation grenades have become common on the lists of items seized by the Mexican army in 2009.

A number of analysts in both Mexico and the United States have noted a trend that shows an escalation in violence driven by the use of more powerful weapons and explosives, especially grenades. Fragmentation grenades are easy to come by in Guatemala, and it's nothing to smuggle them north. Just last week, the AFI stopped two men in a truck near Veracruz (read Zetas affiliation), and found in a hidden compartment 66 frag grenades, allegedly purchased from an arms dealer in Guatemala.

On 19 February, an "armed commando" stole between 20 and 30 kilos of explosives from a mining company in Durango. Five days before that heist, another 121 kilos of explosives and 230 blasting caps were stolen from a separate mining company. Some of the explosives from the first theft were recovered, but most of it remains somewhere in the Mexican black market.

"There's only one reason why someone would steal that much explosive," an agent with the ATF told me last week, raising an important question: when will we begin to see improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in Mexico?

Juarez: Unintended Consequences

Federico Ziga, the president of the National Chamber of the Restaurant Industry and Comdiments (CANIRAC), recently told El Proceso that most of the narco-violence in Juarez happens in or around restaurants. Their battles have destroyed businesses, economically and quite literally. Few items are salvageable when it rains lead. But since thousands of soldiers and federal police have arrived, there has been peace - the goal - and at least one unintended consequence: economic stimulus. According to El Proceso, each soldier spends roughly US$2.00 a day on food and other items. With at least 5,000 soldiers in town, small and mid-sized restauranteurs enjoy a daily injection of some US$10,000 - multiply that by six months (the time period many believe that the soldiers will be in place), and we have a back of the envelop guesstimate of the soldiers' impact on the local economy, roughly US$1.8 million. This is not counting the hundreds of federal police who stay in hotels, eat a nicer restaurants, and generally speaking tend to spend more money. Juarez is at peace, for now, and her restauranteurs are doubly rewarded.

FBI "capacity building" in Chiapas

For me, the term "capacity building" has always held a certain air of UN-esque newspeak for, "let's spend some tax payers' money, teach some people in developing countries a thing or two, and then leave before they get the picture."

And I normally wouldn't match the FBI with capacity building, especially in the last place anyone seems to do anything constructive: Chiapas, Mexico.

For a long time, I've talked about why Mexico needs help controlling its southern border, where most of the immigrants from Central America, and the rest of the world, pass through before entering into the maze of violence, corruption, and possible desert death that Mexico has become for illegal immigrants.

Chiapas is the state where many immigrants first meet the harsh realities of making it to El Norte, and by a long margin, Chiapas is one of the poorest and most often forgotten states in Mexico when it comes to federal attention.

Enter the FBI.

On 3 March, FBI agents began a week long "capacity building" class for investigators who work with the Chiapas state Attorney General's office. The class, "Criminal Intelligence Analysis", will offer instruction on developing informants, interview and interrogation techniques, threat evaluation, organized criminal profiling, the intelligence process (not sure what that means), and phone call analysis - among other items on a long list of things to cover in just one week.

What strikes me as the most interesting aspect of this class is that here we have a perfect example of police training other police. There is no military involvement here. In a region that is littered with bodies due to using the military in the role traditionally defined for police forces, Mexico stands out as a country where there is a deeply entrenched need for security sector reform and a professionalization of the police forces.

This FBI class takes a small but exemplary step in that direction. Bravo.

What was lost with Reyes' Death - one year ago

Colombia's weekly news magazine, La Semana, recently published an interesting and insightful piece about the five things the FARC lost with Raul Reyes' death.

At the time of his death, one year ago on 1 March, 2008, Reyes was considered the FARC's number two leader; he commanded a considerable amount of respect around the world as a moderate, well spoken, and deeply committed member of the FARC's leadership council.

What was lost:

1. The FARC lost Reyes' international contacts. Reyes was close with a number of older members of Germany's Stasi - secret police from the Communist days in Eastern Germany. Through many of these contacts, Reyes was able to procure arms through the black market.

He was also the FARC's spokesman with many international organizations, and was responsible for rallying international support for the FARC's position when it came to negotiating with the Colombian government.

2. Many of the organizations that kept in touch with the FARC through Reyes were exposed when the Colombian government reviewed files recovered from his computer. These groups were subsequently forced to retreat from their supportive role, further isolating the FARC on the international stage, especially in Europe.

3. Also through a thorough review of Reyes' files, the Colombian government learned how the FARC communicated on both a domestic and international level. The guerrilla organization's communications protocols, what the leaders knew, and what the leaders didn't know was also disclosed. Without this knowledge, the deception used to rescue Ingrid Betancourt and the US captives, among others, would not have been possible.

4. The information on Reyes' computer also alerted the Colombian diplomatic corps to the linkages between the FARC and a long list of illegal organizations around the world. With these proven ties, Colombia's international efforts to stymie the FARC's support within illegal realms, especially the black market, have received a boost.

5. Colombia attacked Reyes in a FARC camp located within Ecuador, disrespecting that country's sovereignty while maintaining that if the Ecuadorians had been in on the operation, then the FARC would have found out. Colombia's relations with Ecuador have been severely damaged well into the future with a poor prognosis for any improvement, at least during Correa's mandate.

One year after Reyes' death, on 1 March, 2009, we still find two Andean countries with no diplomatic ties. But the FARC has been forever crippled.

If you ask Uribe if it was worth it, he would not hesitate to tell you yes.

Guinea Bissau: President Assassinated

Mexico's El Universal reported (from an EFE news clip) this morning that the president of Guinea Bissau was assassinated in an explosion on 1 March.

Guinea Bissau is a western African nation long plagued by the drug trade, corruption, and civil unrest. It's difficult to pin down a specific actor in this assassination. But it's nearly certain that the country will now become - more than ever - an ideal spot for moving drugs from South America into Europe.

More on Guinea Bissau's role as a transit nation here.

Zetas Threaten President of Guatemala

The Guatemalan National Police made public on 1 March that Los Zetas have made a threat against the life of President Alvaro Colom.

Someone representing Los Zetas made the phone call to the police emergency line - 110 - on February 28.

The President's security has been doubled.

More on this news as events develop...

Juarez: Calderon's Big Bet

According to the Mexican government, nearly 8,000 soldiers will take on at least three mexican DTOs fighting for control of Juarez: Sinaloa, La Familia, and the Juarez Cartel.

As of this blog post, some 800 have already arrived, and the rest are on the way.

What a way to begin March: a month that could possibly be the bloodiest we've seen on record for Juarez.

This border city has registered the highest number of so-called "narco-executions" in the country, with 2,750 in the past 14 months.

Nearly 8,000 soldiers will be used to not only secure one city, but completely remove all presence of any drug trafficking organization from Juarez, said president Calderon. That's a big bet.

This is the first time he's poured this size of a force into one city. As we watch the fall out, I think it will be interesting to consider the outcome if Calderon does not succeed.

Borrowed from the idea of a failed state, the idea of a failed city could be one that has descended into anarchy, where most law abiding citizens leave, and those that remain are willing to work within a new system, full of criminals, vigilante gangs, the wretched, and run by one drug overlord.

This is a worst-case scenario. Best-case: Juarez becomes a city where the Mexican government tried and failed to exercise sovereignty within its own territory.

Unfortunately, the path to either conclusion above, or one where Calderon's bet pays off, and Juarez becomes a peaceful place, is one littered with bodies.

At some point, someone has to win. If it's not Calderon, then one DTO will have to triumph over the rest. And it's hard to see how three or more of these groups could come to some sort of time-share scheme for the plaza, or some sort of compromise. There's simply too much money at stake, and the nature of Mexican organized crime is that alliances never last as long as conflict.

If the Mexican military cannot save Juarez, we will watch as the various DTOs, vying for control, slowly and steadily rip the city apart, along the way rendering it ungovernable, insecure, and ultimately a black hole of death and violence just south of the US border.

Calderon has thrown down the gauntlet, making Juarez the new focus of his own personal War on Drugs.

On one hand, it is a very risky maneuver. And if he loses, he loses big. Mexican organized crime will have won one of the biggest battles to date in the war Calderon has waged since he entered office.

On the other hand, he's knocking on Obama's back door with the realities of violence in Mexico.

Calderon knows that bloodshed on the border will be a headline story for mainstream media in the US.

I can already see Lou Dobbs, Chris Matthews, Glenn Beck, O'Reily, and others invite a cadre of "experts" who will all weigh on on Calderon's big bet, and who will either admonish or support Obama for not getting more involved.

Calderon has repeatedly asked Washington for help. To date, his requests have been answered with some small results: the Merida Iniative, Project Reckoning, and Operation Xcellerator, to name a few. Obama is also slowly moving towards banning assault rifles again.

But even when we put all this together, it still is not enough.

How many more bodies will have to pile up before Washington realizes that Mexico can't do it alone? Calderon is determined to win, but if he loses, Obama will have no choice but to get involved and make bets of his own.

Operation Xcellerator

Yesterday, the Drug Enforcement Administration (not Agency as many like to put it), released the results of Operation Xcellerator (photos here).

I'll quote their press release:

"To date, Operation Xcellerator has led to the arrest of 755 individuals and the seizure of approximately $59.1 million in U.S. currency, more than 12,000 kilograms of cocaine, more than 16,000 pounds of marijuana, more than 1,200 pounds of methamphetamine, more than 8 kilograms of heroin, approximately 1.3 million pills of Ecstasy, more than $6.5 million in other assets, 149 vehicles, 3 aircraft, 3 maritime vessels and 169 weapons."

I'd say that's major news.

On the heels of Project Reckoning, which focused on the Gulf Cartel, this operation seems to have delivered a gut shot to the Sinaloa DTO.

It's a given that most of the 755 arrests were mid- to low-level operatives. But they are a functioning part of a much larger machine, one that cannot run smoothly without even the smallest cog.

Here is some information on what was not reported.

Two reactions to this news:

First, the renown of the intelligence networks operated by Mexican DTOs has been somewhat dissipated - at least when they operate on the US side of the border. In Mexico, these guys can buy off just about anyone, and set up a pipeline of information that extends all the way to the top levels of state and municipal government - even federal government in some cases.

This level of corruption is simply not going to happen inside the United States.

The Mexican DTOs have a well funded and deeply entrenched network of lookouts, informants, and others who work within their own capacity to provide information, but the high number of arrests in Xcellerator suggests that the operation maintained integrity until boots started kicking in doors.

Second, we've gotten a glimpse, and only a glimpse, of the extent to which Mexico's DTOs have stretched their operations across the United States. This is not just a border state phenomenon. We have seen in Texas and in Arizona where there has been violence directly related to Mexican DTOs, and it's spreading.

I talked here (paragraph 5) about when five Mexicans where found dead in their apartment outside of Birmingham, Alabama. And in another case, a man was abducted and tortured until police came to the rescue in Atlanta. He owed Los Zetas money - never an ideal debtor.

Here is a map of all the places - towns, cities, hamlets, etc - that have reported a Mexican DTO presence.

For better or for worse, Mexican immigrants are working and living in just about every state. Most of these people are hard working and give a necessary contribution to their community, even if they syphon some of the "commons".

But as we get a glimpse of Mexican DTO activity in the United States, and especially as Washington begins to absorb this reality (and they take a very long time on The Hill), we will see the merging of two formerly separate worlds: immigration policy and drug trafficking interdiction.

Where and when the two will meet is largely up to Janet Napolitano, her staff, the president, and Congress.

Until then, I'm sure we will continue to see more shining examples of the DEA's exemplary work in the field of interdiction - but while necessary, interdiction is less than half the battle...

Iron River (partially) Disrupted

Phoenix-based gun dealer George Iknadosian, will soon go on trial to defend allegations that he sold hundreds of weapons - mostly AK-47 - to Mexico's Sinaloa Cartel.

The complete NYT story is here.

I also prepared a piece some time ago, here.

I have various reactions to this news. First, this guy was not the Sinaloa cartel's only source of armament, but considering how fast this group goes through bullets and weapons, I must wonder how US efforts to break up gun smuggling networks will affect the battles raging between Mexico's DTOs.

Inside the US, the ATF and other investigative bodies do not target gun smugglers based on their cartel faction. They follow a lead, gather evidence, build their case, and present it to the US attorney's office before gathering arrest warrants and such.

But as this process picks up speed, and I know it will under this administration, it will be interesting to see how a constricted illegal gun flow to Mexico affects the DTOs operational readiness to defend turf and/or go on the offensive.

I'm no military man, but it seems logical that if you're lacking in bullets and guns, you're going to defend, not attack. And lately it has been a number of offensive strategies that have kept the murder numbers high - Mexico already broke 1,000 murders for 2009 by the way.

A second thought has to do with the Mexican military. Will this supposedly incorruptible force become more compromised over time as the DTOs focus their bribery power on the men and women who control the army's arm supplies?

We already know that the Mexican army faces a serious desertion rate, and those who leave the army and join the DTOs are in a perfect position to engage their friends who are still in the army with cash and requests for help with raiding arms depots. We'll see if that happens.

A final thought - and this is more related to my next blog post - the trial of Iknadosian will reveal just how organized and well greased these smuggling systems are. US citizens still do not appreciate how effective and well organized the Mexican organized criminal factions can be. They have been in place for decades, and only until recently, they've been flying below radar. This fact alone explains why there are so many mid- to low-level DTOs operatives in place in all 50 states. Some of them smuggle guns, but most of them work on the other side of this market - bringing products into the US and distributing them to a neighborhood near you.

PDVSA: Ongoing problems with contractors

Some 3,000 oil workers in the Venezuelan state of Zulia suspended their strike only once PDVSA agreed to pay their salaries. These are not PDVSA employees. They work for companies PDVSA has contracted out to perform a variety of tasks.

The fact that PDVSA will pay the workers directly, rather than settle its debts with the companies, suggests that due to cash flow problems, PDVSA can't pay off its debts with contractors.

Southern Pulse has reported - twice now - that US companies working in the region have shut down individual wells due to PDVSA's inability to make payments.

This seems to be a trend that will see PDVSA struggle as it tries to keep operations going amid a weakening oil price climate and increasing domestic turmoil over the Venezuelan economy in general.

More Coke to EU

Poland's Internal Security Agency confiscated a ton of coke late last week. Along with EU organized criminal groups, members of an unnamed Colombian drug trafficking organization were also arrested.

Poland has been used as yet another gateway into Europe from Colombia and Venezuela. Apart from Project Reckoning, implemented by the DEA, I haven't seen any significant arrests of Latinos inside the EU over the past few years until today, and they're bummed.

Moving a ton of coke from Colombia to Poland is serious work - logistics, money, heavy lifting, and bribes. Money lost is not as valuable as time for these guys.

If the old rule stands - that the amount seized is roughly one third of the actual flow - then Poland is a serious player in the Colombia-EU coke trade.

Finally Serious about Militias in Rio de Janeiro

Earlier this week, the Rio de Janeiro state government created a specific group of lawyers to combat organized crime. This is a first. In the past, the judiciary in Rio has taken a back seat to the Military and Civil police, as well as the infamous Batalion of Special Operations, recently made popular by the move, Tropa de Elite (Elite Squad).

There will be five prosecutors assigned only to cases involving organized crime AND militias. This is an important point.

Militias in Rio de Janeiro have been around since 2000, but only recently have they received any attention from the state security apparatus. A inquiry committee last year found that at leat 225 people should be indicted for their involvement in the city's militia groups.

The Justice League is the largest and well known militia. It operates in western Rio, and like many of the other militias, these guys are well organized, pay a salary to all its members, and makes money mostly from extortion, calling it a "protection fee". Protection from the drug gangs, that is.

These guys also extort small business owners who operate in Rio's informal economy - mostly street vendors. They also sell illegal cable TV connections - TV a gato in Portuguese - and operate an illegal propane tank service. Many people in RIo use propane tanks to fire their stoves.

Militias control nearly 200 separate communities in Rio, and while many people don't like having them around, they can't complain. When the militias come into town, the drug trade is completely removed from the community. Militias were initially formed to operate outside the law when targeting drug traffickers in Rio.

This is part of the reason why the government took so long to target them head on. People down here consider that the militias are the lesser of two evils. But the development of a state level prosecution team to focus on organized crime and militias is a step in the right direction. The government should work to control these pockets of urban turf, whether they're owned by drug traffickers or militias.

It's refreshing to see that Rio is doing something... Finally...

Fundamental Shifts in South America

Lately I've been emailing a number of correspondents in the region, trying to get them to pay more attention to Brazil. We'll see what comes of that effort, but for now, I wanted to share a slightly moderated version of the email I've been sending most of them on how and why there is a fundamental shift going on in South America:

...There's a large story that could use more coverage down here that has everything to do with how Brazil is slowly but surely consolidating its role as South America's leader, despite Chavez's staying power or Washington's relationship with Bogota.

Take, for example, the fact that Uribe met with Lula on 17 February to discuss bilateral relations, trade, etc. On the agenda is also a discussion about border protection and Brazil's role as a mediator/facilitator in Colombia's ongoing dealings with the FARC. The helicopters used to rescue the recently released hostages were furnished by Brazil.

Brazil's Petrobras is a major supporter of Colombia's small yet robust biofuel program. And PDVSA looks to Petrobras to help with refinery needs - not to mention Brazil's potential to eclipse Venezuela as a serious, professional oil exporter in the next 20 years.

UNASUR was Brazil's idea, and when Ameripol meets, Brazil is one of the loudest voices, I'm told.

Obama called Lula very early in his administration, and he will travel to the US in March. When Obama comes down here, I think he will promote - privately - the idea of Brazil as a regional policing force. Brazil will resist initially, but if Obama takes that position, it will give Brazil at least tacit approval of its new role in the region.

Along those lines, Brazil will be replaced by Colombia as Washington's number one partner in the region, especially when Amorim (Brazil's leftist Foreign Minister who does NOT like Tom Shannon) is out of office in 2011.

There's more: Brazil is currently developing five separate infrastructure projects (w/o Chinese help) to link its interior with the Pacific, through Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia. In the mid- to long-term, Brazil will increasingly be interested in protecting these assets from criminal groups inside these Andean countries that seek to use them for black market purposes. These projects link a portion of Brazil's economy with security issues inside her neighbors.

Also, when Brazil's recently discovered natural gas deposits come online (late 2009, early 2010), the country will depend less on Bolivia, and will be in a position to actually export natural gas. This makes Brazil an attractive partner for Chile, currently struggling under its less than ideal natural gas partnership with Argentina.

In short, there are many factors, some mentioned above, that point toward Brazil's future as the leader in the region. We're both aware that some media sources have covered the story of the "Giant that awoke," but the stories I've seen only scratch the surface...

Pricing on Weapons Smuggled into Mexico

I've been asked by the Dept. of Homeland Security to remove this post. Apparently what I thought was public information is still sensitive.

My apologies.

Hutchinson-Whampoa Drops Manta Concession

The world's largest container-terminal operator, Hutchinson-Whampoa, will drop its concession to modernize and operate Ecuador's deep water port at Manta, according to a 6 February Bloomberg report.

This news comes after a 3 January speech by President Correa, who said Hutchinson would have to leave the country if it did not develop Manta according to the government's wished.

It is an "unacceptable" position, according to Hutchinson.

This is an interesting turn of events. On one hand, I believe Correa was speaking to a domestic audience, eager for him to make nationalistic statements.

On the other, Hutchinson doesn't need Manta. It is the closes port to China across the pacific, but apparently ports in Peru, Chile, Panama, and Mexico are just as if not more attractive.

I suspect Correa may be lobbying to win back his Chinese investors. We'll see if he does or not.

The "middle" of the end for the FARC?

Colombia's Semana news magazine posted an interesting piece yesterday. Four Colombians presented themselves to Panama's Servicio Nacional de Fontera, located some 50 kilometers from the Panama/Colombia border.

Most speculate the four Colombians were members of the FARC. Reading the story, I was reminded of the FARC's desertion rate, and how in the past couple years, we have seen this rate rise, slowly but steadily.

Meanwhile, on 10 February, El Tiempo reported that a joint force of Colombian police and military apprehended Jesus Antonio Garcia Largo (aka Chucho Mapurilla) in Putumayo, near the border with Ecuador. At 51 years old, he is a 35 year FARC veteran who spent some time with the 48th Front . Chucho was also one of the FARC's remaining ideological leaders...

These two news items, when taken together with the conciliatory position the FARC has taken recently (apart from the Indian massacre in Nariño), points towards what I would call the "middle" of the end for the FARC as an armed threat inside Colombia.

I say "middle" because I've already considered the beginning of the end, here, as well as questioning if they were even still revolutionaries in 2005, here.

Moving forward, I think it is important to note the desertion and attrition rate - measured both by what the Colombian military says (see last to paragraphs in this piece) and by what we see reported, like Panama yesterday.

It is anyone's guess how much longer the FARC will remain as an organization that closely resembles what it was during the Pastraña administration, but I think we can all agree that the FARC has peaked and is now on its way down.

The PRI's Comeback?

Upcoming legislative elections in Mexico may tell us just how tight a grip organized crime has on the political establishment.

According to a poll released on 9 February by Mexican daily El Universal, the former ruling party, the PRI, currently enjoys nearly 40% of the potential vote, while Calderon's PAN party would take 25% and the beleaguered PRD would take 15%.

The PRI, as I have commented before, is a party known to have close ties to organized crime in Mexico's northern states, and likely in other states across the nation.

With all 500 members of Mexico's lower house and at least four state governors up for re-election on 5 July, we'll see if the PRI takes control of the lower house. If so, I'll be sure to let you know which members have suspected ties with organized crime...

Cancun in Trouble

Mexico's armed forces took control of the Cancun police on 9 February after the death of Brig. General Mauro Enrique Tello Quinones. As far as I know, this is the highest ranking military officer killed by organized crime in Mexico in the past few years.

The retired general had just taken a consulting post in Cancun to help develop a "new strategy" to combat organized crime. I'm not sure what that new strategy might have been, but apparently policemen within Cancun didn't want to find out.

Not long after the general's tortured body was found with two others, the Cancun chief of police was arrested, suspected of the murder. Francisco Velasco will remain in custody as the military seeks to unravel this mystery.

Obviously Cancun is a major tourist destination. If you knew that security in Cancun had been compromised so much that the military had to take over, would you fly there this year for Spring break? It reminds me of when heads first rolled in Acapulco.

Maras and Heavy Weaponry

Two stories in Central America surfaced late last week, suggesting that street gangs, aka "maras" or "pandilleros" in Spanish, have begun purchasing heavy weaponry.

Funds from extortions, kidnapping, and drug sales, have been used by maras in El Salvador to purchase at least two AK-47s, one M-16s, a G-3s, and even a light anti-tank weapon (LAW).

According to Oscar Bonilla, the director of El Salvador's National Council of Public Security, cited the arrest of five street gang members, and the seizure of their weapons (listed above), when discussing this trend.

The five gang members were arrested while transporting the arms police believe were to be used to attack a maximum security prison in Zacatecoluca, located about an hour from San Salvador. This is the prison that is thought to house a critical mass of Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) senior members.

This news comes on the heels of a separate incident, where gang members used "heavy caliber rifles" and police uniforms to surprise and murder six individuals in the areas of Quezaltepeque and Kejapa, about 20 miles from San Salvador. Reminds me of what the Mexican organized criminals like to do - use police uniforms.

The articles rounded out the news with a few statistics:

In 2008, the economic costs of violence in Central America reached US$6.5 billion, or some 7.7 percent of Central America's combined GDP

During this time, businesses and families spent some US$1.2 billion to protect themselves

Between 90,000 and 100,000 gang members live in Mexico and Central America, many of them deported from the United States.

Nicaragua's Vulnerability

On 1 February, Mexico's El Universal published a piece on the Sinaloa drug trafficking organization's presence on Nicaragua's Pacific coast.

According to the piece, the Sinaloa DTO has been present in Nicaragua since 2003. I'm not surprised to see this news: we've long known that DTOs are crawling around Central America.

What makes this news more interesting, however, is Nicaragua's demographical distribution. Most of the country's population is concentrated on the Pacific side. Truth be told, only a small amount of the country is actually patrolled and controlled by the government, seated in Managua.

There is a thin strip of population on Nicaragua's Caribbean coast, but if you've ever been to Bluefields, you'd note that most people there identify themselves more with Jamaica than with Managua.

And to the north, where Indian tribes rule, there is little to no connection with Managua, other than the occasional armed altercation between Nicaraguan police and the coastal Indians, armed to the teeth.

The vast expanse between Managua and the country's easter coast is a no man's land, especially to the north, where Nicaragua borders with Honduras.

The news in Mexico claims that DTOs are once again focused on Nicaragua's Pacific coast, but I agree with others, who claim the middle of the country is much more vulnerable.

Obama on the lookout for Corruption

For those of you who read Portuguese, Jornal do Brasil published today a short piece of mine about corruption in the US and Brazil, and Obama's admission that he had made a mistake on Daschel.

You can find it here.

Paraisopolis and the PCC - history and symbology

Sao Paulo was once again in the news earlier this week when at least 120 members of the Military Police - including an elite squad - entered and occupied one of Brazil's largest favelas.

Paraisopolis is home to about 80,000 people, and is the size of approximately 80 soccer fields, or some 798,695 square meters. There are some 17,200 houses. Bottom line: closely-packed quarters.

The violence started when a police action in the favela on Sunday night resulted in the death of a 25 year old man who the police called a drug trafficker and car thief. People inside the favela, however, thought otherwise, calling him a "trabalhador" or, simply put, worker.

Most of the violence was focused at two entrances to the favela, where Volkswagen vans, tires, trash, furniture, and other flammable items were piled and set ablaze.

Rocks, bottles, sticks, and other items were thrown at the police, but there were enough shots fired from sniper positions inside the favela to provoke the police to bump up the number to 300 Military Police, as well as call in a support unit which sent in an armored vehicle and a helicopter.

As far as I can tell the violence has subsided. But all those who are interested in this incident need to understand that there is a symbolic quality to Paraisopolis that few foreign reporters understand: this is PCC territory.

In 2003, members of the Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC), or the First Capital Command as the prison gang is known in English, were placed in charge of Paraisopolis by the leader of the PCC - a very shrewd man known as Marcola.

Marcola, who is currently in prison, made his stamp on history in May, 2006, when he ordered a general strike on Sao Paulo police that brought the city to its knees.

But when he ordered his men to take over the drug trafficking network in Paraisopolis, he sent in a team of 50 men, who acted as a type of paramilitary group that enforced the law within the "city inside a city." For Marcola, Paraisopolis was a very important community to control, influence, and develop as a support system for the PCC.

When the police come in and act like they run the show, there will always be trouble.

According to my sources, there were two mid-level Military Police guys who were calling themselves the "donos" or "owners" of Paraisopolis. This news most certainly made its way back to Marcola. And I'm sure he made a phone call to put his people inside the favela on the alert. But Marcola is smart enough to know that he can't just start killing cops. There needs to be a reason. And that reason was delivered by the very security organization that does not want to go head to head with the PCC.

Reading the news Monday morning, I was reminded of Black Hawk Down, and how Mark Bowden described in his book the way the locals in Mogadishu would pop out of nowhere and fire randomly and sometimes lethally on the US Rangers who were completely surrounded.

It explains why the Military Police in Sao Paulo went in with so much force. The other explanation is that Paraisopolis is located near Morumbi, a well-heeled neighborhood in Sao Paulo. The Secretary of Public Security couldn't let the burning tires and thrown bottles go without some sort of response.

I have to consider that Marcola used this incident as an opportunity to test the reaction forces and willingness of the relatively new government in place. Paraisopolis was a test of will between two men: Marcola and the Secretary of Public Security for the state of Sao Paulo. Makes me wonder if Marcola has something else up his sleeve...

Stay tuned.

Get off the Fence

The Dallas Morning News reported this morning that we may see an “enhanced role” for the United States in Mexico. True, the drug trade in Mexico is out of control, but I have to agree with those who are cautious about any "enhancement", or joint operations.

This is Mexico’s fight first, and while the US must support its southern neighbor, that support should come by way of what the US can do inside its own borders, first.

That aside, the DMN article reminded me of a presentation I gave in November 2008 at a government intelligence agency base in Texas. The presentation was on the presence of Mexican drug trafficking organizations in the Americas, outside of Mexico.

During my 6-hour stay with government intelligence employees, the one resounding comment I heard was, “we need to get off the fence.”

The US needs to decide, from an intelligence-gathering point of view, whether or not Mexico will be seen as a friend or an enemy. That fundamental distinction will set the tone for all decisions for “enhanced roles” down the road. And as far as I can tell, that decision has not yet been made.

Now, back to the presentation: the slide that got the most attention was a map of the United States, I borrowed from the Los Angels Times (see below).

Apart from the problems with drug demand and gun trafficking from the US into Mexico, we need to focus on eradicating - or at least complicating - the down stream operations of Mexican organized crime inside the US.

The laundry list of what the US government can do inside our own country is long enough not to continue worrying about the supply side. Sure, share intelligence, but let the Mexicans fight their own battle. We have enough to do at home.

A Look Inside Brazil's Foreign Policy Team

A source of mine in Brasilia, and someone close to the maneuvering of politics within the Brazilian Congress and Lula’s administration, recently made an interesting comment.

Lula, he says, becomes quite upset at the lack of coordination between the various cabinet-level politicians who operate a specific segment of Brazil’s foreign policy.

Brazil’s foreign policy is officially delegated to Foreign Minister, Celsom Amorim, and Lula’s Foreign Affairs adviser, Professor Marco Aurelio Garcia, who has been a foreign policy adviser with the Workers Party (PT) for well over a decade.

Professor Marco represents the PT’s hard left, based on ideology from the party’s socialist position formed in the 1960s. His position contrasts somewhat with the relatively more moderate position taken by the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, aka Itamaraty, and under Amorim’s charge.

Amorim undoubtedly drives Brazil’s over all foreign policy maneuvers, but insiders report that it’s Professor Marco who works behind the scenes to maintain Brazil’s cordial relationship with the region’s leftist governments in Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Argentina, and Paraguay.

If Obama seeks to appease Brazil, and use the South American giant as a regional proxy in South America, his team must appease both Amorim and Professor Marco – not an easy task as both men often disagree.

Defense Minister, Nelson Jobim, also has a voice in Brazilian foreign policy. So does Carlos Minc, the Environmental Minister. In the area of foreign trade, Ministers Reinhold Stephanes with Agriculture and Miguel Jorge with Development and Foreign Trade, weigh in.

In addition to this not to small group, another appointee to Lula’s administration, Harvard Professor Roberto Mangabeira Unger, is in place to advise on long term, strategic foreign policy decision making. His voice and ideas fall directly in line with what Brazil would plan for a long-term, strategic relationship with the United States.

Mangabeira, my source reports, recently visited Washington to engage with the Obama administration. He claims links to the first couple because he was at least a professor for Barak Obama when he attended Harvard.

Perhaps Mangabeira’s influence led to the 26 January phone call between Presidents Obama and Lula. But the press never covered Mangabeira’s visit, nor was the Brazilians embassy directly involved in the visit.

Either way, Lula has unofficially committed to a trip to DC in March, and it is quite possible Obama will visit Brazil before the end of the year, maybe even before the end of the North American summer months.

Border Surge and Unintended Consequences in Spain

A colleague of mine who writes for Latin American Thought recently sent over an interesting article from El Espectador, a Colombian print weekly.

The article outlines how Colombian organized crime has installed itself inside Spain.

Citing the recent murder of a Sr. Leonidas Vargas, killed while resting in a hospital bed in Madrid, the author pointed out that in the past the assassin would have been sent from Colombia - most certainly on his way home before the Spanish authorities could respond to the crime. Today, however, the assassin probably didn't even leave Madrid, asserts the author. I completely agree.

For years now, Spanish police have done away with the idea that Colombian assassins travel from Colombia to do their work in Spain. Today, these men live and work in Madrid, perfectly blending in with Madrid's business class.

The are called "debt collectors," and are sent to force their targets to pay a drug trafficking debt - often marked in dollars - with their own life.

"You pay or you die."

There is very little about this scenario that we haven't seen in Latin America. There is even little novelty of this occurrence in Spain, especially for those of us who follow the trends of Latin American drug trafficking.

But what I find interesting is how Spain may become over time a new battle ground for rival trafficking groups who seek to use the Iberian peninsula as a spring board into the rest of Europe.

Until now, we haven't seen blood shed between the Colombian and Mexican drug trafficking organizations (DTOs). There is a business agreement in place, one forged many years ago. But this agreement considers only the movement of product into the United States. When the EU is under consideration, all bets are off.

Spain becomes a more important transit country when we consider Venezuela's role in moving bulk quantities of cocaine from Colombia to Europe, as much of it flows through Spain.

Spain is a stopping point on the drug route from Western Africa into the EU, and places such as Guinea-Bissau and Senagal, which have become reception points for drugs flowing out of Brazil and Argentina.

Finally, if all the talk of a "border surge" turns into reality, then we will see Spain, again, become a hot transit zone.

The Colombians are already in place. And I recently read that street gangs such as the Mara Salvatrucha are heavily networked throughout Spanish cities. What, then, will happen once the Mexicans come into town?

A spike of violence in Spain on the heels of any border surge, I think, would be the text book definition of unintended consequences.

Citizen Command of Juarez - update

Update 20/1: The Mexican army has declared an alert in the state of Chihuahua due to the formation of what it calls a "new criminal group." The army assumes that this group may turn into something similiar to "La Familia" a civil justice group in Michoacan that eventually fell into the services of one drug trafficking organization, used to wipe out members of a rival criminal group. If the Citizen Command of Juarez does begin working with a DTO, it will be very interesting to see how that plays out. Either way, the future does not bode well for Juarez.

Citizen Command of Juarez

Over the weekend, a militia group in Juarez popped out of nowhere. They call themselves the Citizen Command of Juarez (CCJ), and through a number of emails sent to newspapers and other media, this group claims it will kill one criminal every 24 hours until there is peace again in Juarez.

This group is allegedly supported by local business men who are “tired” of the impunity for criminals in Juarez.

Leaders in the local business community have negated any connection to this popular militia.

As many know, Juarez suffered some of the worst violence in Mexico in 2008, and it’s likely to experience a similar stretch of murder and mayhem in 2009.

The birth of this militia may not take the group farther than a couple killings and maybe some more media play before they are stopped. Cleary, the men this group wants to target are untouchable – too powerful to worry about a bunch of civilians with (American) guns.

There is one significant point to make, however. When citizens have enough evidence to support the idea that the cops and the military can’t contain crime and violence, the argument to take justice into one’s own hands becomes stronger. Given what Mexico faces in 2009, groups like CCJ will spread, if they haven’t already…

An Opening for Obama to Engage Brazil

The new administration will seek to engage Brazil in an unprecedented way. This is one of the strongest conclusions made by nearly everyone I spoke with while preparing a recently published piece on Obama’s plans for Latin America.

The specifics of how, when, where, etc are yet to come. As many have already noted, there is a (long) short list of people on deck to take over for Tom Shannon. And Cuba will certainly be the first LatAm country to receive some long overdue attention, setting the tone for the Obama administration’s efforts south of the border.

But when it comes to Brazil, there are few in DC who can put their finger on exactly how the US can answer Brazil’s biggest question: so what? So what if you want to work with us, the Brazilians might say to Obama’s team. What’s in it for us?

From Brazil’s point of view, the US is not a free trader. Brazil has perennially confronted – and defeated over a cotton subsidies issue – the US at the WTO. Sugar and ethanol subsidies further exacerbate trade challenges, and to date there has been little to no support from the US on any matters concerning Brazil’s desire to become a player on the UN Security Council (never mind it’s one of the most defunct multilateral forums in existence today).

But let’s say that whoever replaces Tom Shannon has a keen ability to break through to Lula’s people, winning over the especially skeptical Celso Amorim, Brazil’s Foreign Minister and a strong advisor to the president. Then what?

What can Obama possibly offer that doesn’t have to go through Congress or be subjected to the geopolitical strategies of other UN Security Council members? The most clear answer is to support Brazil’s efforts to combat South America’s drug trade.

In a recently released policy paper on Brazil’s new national defense posture, the Brazilian military announced that it will begin shifting its focus from the southern borders to the Amazon basin, specifically to its borders with Bolivia, Peru, and Colombia. To date, the “Cobra” operation, run by Brazil’s Federal Police to patrol the Colombia-Brazil border, has met limited success, largely due to inadequate resources.

With the military high command united behind securing Brazil’s most porous borders, Brazil is in a position to provide support in material and man power to her neighbors that have the desire but not the ability to stop drugs flowing from their countries to flourishing markets in the US and Europe.

And I was waiting for the news to come out. I knew it was a matter of time before Lula would make public his first offer of assistance to combat drug trafficking in the region. It happened on 15 January in a small border town between Brazil and Bolivia, where an international road that connects the Atlantic to the Pacific will be finalized later this year (and the Chinese are happy about that).

Lula said, “he would grant Morales’ request for helicopters and other logistics support to patrol the porous frontier that is a major cocaine-trafficking route from the Andes…”

And this is where Obama’s people – and the Drug Enforcement Administration – should tread carefully. Lula is reaching out in an unprecedented way to assist Bolivia with an international challenge that Brazil now realizes is in its national best interests to combat.

The State Department under Clinton and the DEA should recognize Brazil’s political abilities in the region, and follow her lead. If Obama wants to appease Brazil, the best way is to whole heartedly support the region’s true leader – one with the ability to influence both Colombia and Bolivia (and Venezuela).

With enough support, Brazil could be encouraged to assist Peru, Colombia, and Venezuela with the region’s drug trafficking challenge. The US need not be the region’s policeman when a capable and ready Brazil is in place. It would be folly to try and force a reversal to the days when the US’ agents crawled all over the place poking around behind the backs of local police.

Finally, two caveats: I do not want to down play the DEA's important role in the region, but it is important the DEA remains a team player, as hard as it is sometimes due to concerns over corruption and operational integrity.

And second, I do not wish to promote the use of the military to do police work. The Brazilian Federal Police should take the lead on combating drug trafficking in the region. But I must recognize that in Latin America security sector reform is more of a dream than a reality. And the reality now is that if Brazil’s military will step forward to assist Bolivia and stop the cocaine and coca paste leaking out of that country and through Brazil into Europe and the US, we – and Obama – should welcome that initiative and do what we can to support it.

Thankfully, Lula has committed the Brazilian military before Obama’s team could come in and make that suggestion, which would have been a mistake and bad start considering Brazil’s sensitivities over issues of sovereignty – like what its military does and does not do.

With this announcement in place, the Obama administration has a clear hand to play. Let’s hope they do.

Peru, dollars, and China

Word has come through that Peru is talking about swapping out its local currency for dollars amidst negotiations for a major loan. But the most interesting aspect of this economic news is that the Peruvian government is talking to the United States and China.

The Peruvian Finance Minister, Luis Valdivieso, said Peru is looking for some US$ 9 billion in loans to help finance some $35 billion in development projects.

Considering the change of the Presidential guard next week and other issues around the world, the US might stall - or prolong - the negotiations in the face of increasingly drastic Peruvian need. It will be interesting to see if China bails out Peru, with a long-term strategic look at what Peru has to offer in return, apart from repaying the loan and what Garcia has already given China by way of mining concessions...

Failure in Mexico: The State vs. the states

During the week of 5 January, Mexican military forces engaged and captured Enrique "El Primo" Rivera Garin, a suspected operator of the Beltran Leyva brothers cartel in the town of Tlapa de Comonfort, located in the state of Guerrero.

At the time of his arrest, Rivera had on his person some five kilos of cocaine, two assault rifles, a shotgun, three handguns, thousands of dollars in cash, over seven yards of detonating cord, and a cartridge of industrial explosive.

After his arrest, the town's mayor fired the entire police force. He suspected that the whole group had been working with the narco cell run by Rivera.

Reflecting on what Boz recently posted concerning a range of ideas and positions on Mexico as a failed state, I came to the conclusion that we shouldn't be talking about that yet. It's ok for the DOD to engage in long range planning. That's what they do.

In a Dallas Morning News article, the author takes a moment to consider Ciudad Juarez as a failed city, noting that the mayor and other city officials now commute from El Paso.

The same could probably be said of Tijuana. And I spoke with a contact in Culiacan yesterday who told me that he was all but convinced that it was time to leave the city. He said the violence there is the worst it's ever been. Most violent acts are likely not even reported.

I would submit that rather than consider Mexico as on the road to a failed state, we should dig deeper, look at the state level within Mexico, not simply the State. We should also look at the possibility of failed cities, and towns - especially towns like Reynosa, Matamoros, and Nuevo Laredo on the US-Mexico border where the chances of failure appear most likely.

Violence in Mexico has finally gained traction in US news. But rather than talk about possible eventualities, which is interesting I admit, let's focus on realities.

Ciudad Juarez is an ugly reality. So is the small town of Tlapa de Comonfort.

My question is how many small towns in Mexico are under the complete control of narcos. How many cities? And how many Mexican states? Counting those numbers, we will over time gain a better handle on whether or not Mexico will fail at the national level or become something perhaps even worse: a hollow democracy that, due to the ideals of sovereignty, shields corruption, crime, and violence that extends from the top all the way to small, forgotten towns all over the country.

Inside Los Zetas

On the last day of 2008, Mexico’s El Universal paper published an interesting summary entitled “Los Zetas” por dentro. Its author had obtained a document prepared by the Mexican PGR (Attorney General), based on interviews conducted with former members of Los Zetas. As someone who has followed this group for some time, I was pleased to learn something new.

Many understand that the Los Zetas is a well organized drug trafficking organization, formed by members of a group of Mexican soldiers who deserted their unit, known as the Grupo Aeromóvil de Fuerzas Especiales (GAFES).

The GAFES deserters, totaling around 40 men, stuck together and offered their services to the Gulf Cartel, and Osiel Cárdenas, specifically. But once he was extradited around two years ago today, Heriberto Lazcano, aka El Lazca, took absolute control of Los Zetas. The group slowly but surely took complete command and control over all of the drug trafficking corridors formerly operated by the Gulf Cartel, primarily the plazas from Nuevo Laredo to Matamoros, across the border from Brownsville, Tx in the lower Rio Grande Valley.

When El Lazca took over the Gulf Cartel’s operations, Mexico experienced a cascading moment in the country’s drug trade. For the first time in Mexican history, we had a military unit operating like a drug trafficking organization (DTO). In Mexico, it’s normally the other way around.

And based on what we know from Colombian history, when you have a disciplined military unit operating as a DTO, it’s very hard to dislodge entrenched soldiers. The Zetas differ in one very important aspect: they are willing to take the Mexican military head on – and so far, the Mexican military has, at best, disrupted only a fraction of the group’s operations.

The men who stuck with El Lazco, who were part of the original Zetas, are referred to as the Zetas Viejos within the DTO. They are the men who work as commanders and operate from command/control positions in the group’s various hard points within its drug trafficking network. One very clear example is Miguel Triveño, aka El 40, who runs the Nuevo Laredo plaza – perhaps still the most lucrative drug trafficking corridor in the Americas.

El 40 and El Lazco clearly are Zetas Viejos. They are also known as Cobras Viejos, or L Viejos. Logically, the younger recruits, and next down in the line of command, are called Zetas Nuevos. These men include Mexican military deserters, former policemen, family members of Los Zetas, and – most notably – men trained within the Guatemalan Special Forces, known as Kaibiles. The Zetas Nuevos operate on the frontlines, take orders only from the Zeta Viejo commander they serve under, and act with the utmost brutality and lethal force.

These are the guys you read about when there’s a story that claims two trucks pulled up to a stopped car and unloaded a full clip into the target – overkill. Their calling card includes lots of brass bullet casings littered on the ground, kidnap and torture, decapitation, disfiguration, and in some cases very professional “double-tap” styled assassinations. In this regard, they differ little from the enforces who work for La Familia, the Beltran Leyva brothers, or the Tijuana Cartel.

But where the Zetas differ, I think, is again with the military order that reigns throughout the organization and the crisp, clean nature of many of the group’s operations. There are documented cases of paramilitary training for new Zetas, especially those with little to no military experience. Training camps dot the landscape in Tamaulipas and Nuevo Leon, hidden within large acre ranches.

The Cobras Nuevos, or L Nuevos, form the next level down the chain of command. These are the men who serve the Zetas Viejos directly as bodyguards. When the Zetas Viejos travel, they take a trusted contingent of gunslingers, and those men are the Cobras Nuevos. According to the PGR, sometimes Zetas Nuevos join them as the drivers to back up the Cobra Nuevos. They are all armed with one long barrel rifle, likely automatic, and a sidearm.

The next level down is where we get into the Zetas’ money laundering and business operations. A nation-wide network of men are in place with the sole purpose of covering up all the illicit business operated by members of Los Zetas. It’s not clear in the article, but it makes sense to consider that each Zeta Viejo operates his own group of business owners and accountants. Within the Zetas DTO, the members of this group are appropriately referred to as productividad.

The lowest members within the Zetas DTO chain of command are called halcones. These men serve as the eyes and the ears of Los Zetas wherever they may be. I’ve read stories that recount how in states like Tamaulipas, where Los Zetas have complete control, the halcones stand on overpasses that cross major highways just to take note of the traffic flowing in and out of town. These men likely work in business, politics, at bars, at hospitals, anywhere, and everywhere. These men are likely part of the Mexican “blue collar” infrastructure that keeps the country running. Makes me think of the movie The Fight Club – these guys are everywhere.

In addition to potentially thousands of halcones and members of the productividad who operate both in Mexico and in the United States, we can’t forget that the Zetas Viejos have any number of police commanders, politicians, high-level businessmen, judges, lawyers, military soldiers and mid- to high-level commanders, etc. on the payroll.

All that information funnels through the Zeta intelligence network, and is likely the principle reason why no man who betrays this group is safe in Mexico or the United States, or anywhere really. It’s very much like when Pablo Esobar in Colombia would send his assassinations to kill people who tried to flee from him in Spain, Russia, or even Turkey.

The Zetas’ counter intelligence organization has no peer in the Americas, and it begins with the halcones. Like most intelligence organizations, gathering information is easy, shifting through it to make sense of what’s important and what’s not is where the work gets tricky.

Obviously, this network is not without faults. A high-level Zeta leader has already been captured this year. Miguel Angel Soto Parra, who oversaw Zeta activities in central Mexico, is now in custody. He will likely join some of his other Zeta Viejo buddies caught last year, and join the list of those to be extradited to the US.

The bottom line, however, is that the Zetas is a well trained, well informed, and absurdly rich organization that will take more than the Mexican military to bring down. We tend to focus on just the top members, but when you consider all the levels within the organization that I’ve described above, the whole Zeta DTO expands into a massive criminal organization that likely employs thousands in a country where finding a legitimate job is very difficult, if not next to impossible in today’s economic climate.

It will be very interesting to watch how Mexico’s organized criminal map unfolds in 2009. I’ll make one safe prediction: Los Zetas will still be around in 2010, and quite possibly beyond Calderon and Obama’s respective administrations.

Overwhelming the System

According to a New York Times article, published 11 January, federal immigration cases are overwhelming the justice system from federal to local courts.

Some of the below highlights of this article are based on a study recently concluded by a Syracuse University research group known as the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse. Quoted material follows:

• Federal prosecutions of immigration crimes nearly doubled in the last fiscal year, reaching more than 70,000 immigration cases in 2008.
  
• Immigration prosecutions have steeply risen over the last five years, while white-collar prosecutions have fallen by 18 percent, weapons prosecutions have dropped by 19 percent, organized crime prosecutions are down by 20 percent and public corruption prosecutions have dropped by 14 percent.
  
• United States attorneys on the Southwest border, who handle the bulk of immigration prosecutions, usually decline to prosecute drug suspects with 500 pounds of marijuana or less — about $500,000 to $800,000 worth. As a result of Washington’s decision to forgo many of those cases, Mr. Goddard said, local agencies are handling many of them and becoming overwhelmed.

On a light day, judges sentence between 40 and 60 criminals at a time. On heavy days, over 200 immigrants are handed sentences that vary from a few weeks to six months.

Reminds me of the Dark Knight when Two-face – before his accident – put 500 of Gotham’s criminals before a judge…

This article underscores one point more than any other. Eventually resources will dry up. We’ll never have enough judes, prosecutors, or ICE agents to capture, try, sentence, and the deport all the illegal aliens flowing in and out of the United States. And it’s quite clear that deportation is not a long term solution. Some of those deported are back inside the US in well under a week.

We can't police our way out of our problems with immigration.

Obama may have not wanted to touch the immigration lightening rod topic during the campaign, but one way or another it’s going to catch up to him.

Obama to meet with Calderon today - January 12, 2009

Much has already been published about Obama’s first “official” meeting with a world leader. Mexican President Felipe Calderon will meet with president-elect Barack Obama this morning at the Mexican Cultural Center in Washington DC. Calderon has an agenda heavy with a number of items that include immigration, security, and trade, yet he will receive very little by way of promise or action.

Mexico’s Proceso news magazine is quick to point out that Calderon supported McCain in the presidential campaign. But Obama will not hold that against him. Nevertheless, it will likely be at the back of both men’s minds, and if Obama wants to, he could use that simple fact to pressure Calderon, if only a little.

What Obama will make clear is that every request Calderon might make will have to go through the US Congress first – immigration reform, NAFTA tweaks, and support for the drug war top that list.

Obama has also played “the wall” cards close to his chest. The construction of the new border fence continues, and during the presidential campaign, neither Obama nor McCain made much of the issue. The truth is there was little daylight between each man’s position – use a wall near the cities and rely on a “virtual fence” in the long stretches between populated areas.

This will not be good enough for Calderon, but he must face the larger picture. Dozens of immigrants may still loiter around the Chevron station off of the 285 loop in Atlanta, looking for work as they do in every major city in the United States, but there are enough Mexican immigrants returning home to capture the national media’s attention. Once again, Congress comes into play, and the new Congress, once seated, will most certainly focus on the economy. The Mexicans, sadly, may have to wait it out through the summer and into the fall before we see any significant movement in Congress, and that’s with or without strong support from the Obama Whitehouse.

Calderon has done well to get his foot in the door first, ahead of a long line of world leaders eager to make a positive first impression on the new US president. To what avail? As optimistic as I’d like to be on this point, I must agree with the Proceso when it points out that little more that rhetoric will come of this meeting.