Mexican Drug Cartels: Final of 5 Part Series: What the Future will Hold.

What the future will hold involving the United States and the activities of the various Mexican Drug Trafficking Organizations is extremely difficult to say. What is known is that in the last several years the carnage that they have raged across Mexico has reached into the United States. In just 2009 there were 9000 deaths in Mexico associated with the battles between the Cartels and with the Mexican Government’s efforts to stop the violence. The future for both Mexico and the United States is very uncertain on who will win the war, whether it is the Cartels or the two governments attempting to control them.

To gauge the impact here of how the U.S. is effected by the Cartels one only needs to turn to local media in certain regions of the country. But the National Drug Intelligence Center did release a report detailing the effects back in 2008 just when the war began ramp up in Mexico. According to an April 2008 National Drug Intelligence Center report, Mexican drug cartels are operating in 195 U.S. cities. “Mexican DTOs [Drug Trafficking Organizations] are the most pervasive organizational threat to the United States,” the report said. “They are active in every region of the country and dominate the illicit drug trade in every area except the Northeast

The activities are of such a concern that even the Department of Homeland Security Director Janet Napolitano says that the drug cartels and the violence associated with them are a threat to U.S. Security. If DHS believes that the issue of the cartels needs to be address from a Security standpoint then why has the Obama Administration not proposed a new strategy?

What is at stake?

There is money to be lost on both sides of this war. But to better understand what the costs may be one has to understand what the margins for loss and profit are.

Mexico is the number one source of Marijuana into the United States. This accounts for roughly 50-60% of the MDC”s profits annually. The $320 billion annual global drug industry now accounts for 1 percent of all commerce on the planet. Mexico is a major provider of methamphetamine and heroine. The United States consumption of these drugs revenues range from 13 billion to 38 billion annually.

With a figure in 2010 dollars of $320 billion globally at stake and the United States being the largest consumer of the world’s illegal narcotics trades the profits are staggering. A full 10 percent of Mexico's economy is built on drug proceeds - $25 billion smuggled in from the United States every year, of which 25 cents of each $100 smuggled is seized at the border. Thus there's no incentive for the kind of financial reform that could tame the cartels.

The profits at stake rival some medium sized countries and some large size global corporations.

However, what is frequently forgotten is that beyond the costs of what the drug trade makes on the sale and distribution of their illegal products. But also what other criminal activities the Drug Trafficking Organizations and their support organizations immerse themselves in as well. Many of these crimes adversely affect legitimate businesses on both sides of the border.

How does that affect us here in seeking to come to the United States for a better life. Gangs extort money from drug and illegal aliens transiting the U.S. Mexican border.

The Mexican Drug Cartels have also become extremely good at recruitment, both here in the U.S. and in Mexico. Los Zeta’s, and enforcer gang turned to Drug Cartel has utilized new methods to recruit young people either to be drug couriers or into their organizations as employees. Mexican Drug Cartels are utilizing recruiting including the use of the underground radio stations, Internet advertisements and print ads to recruit young people to work within the cartel or to transport narcotics across the U.S. Mexican Border.

The Risk to American Businesses

The impact on the U.S. economy is also being effected. Through higher cost passed on to the consumer as the cost of doing business. As well as increases in taxes at the local, state and federal level which further burden to general public.

Industries impacted in the United States include the Oil Industry, tourism, Military, Politics, Education, Housing, Crime Rate, Banks and the Firearm Industry. For example, Mexico is a major provider of oil to the U.S. providing one third of all imported oil. Several of the drug cartels have interdicted oil from the oil producing companies for their own their own profit, costing the oil companies millions. The U.S. automotive industry has been impacted as well. General Motors was extorted by the MDC’s for months before GM finally paid. This ultimately impacts the consumer here in the U.S. through higher costs. One could speculate since the United States taxpayer now owns 51% of General Motors that they are now extorting money from the United States Government, and we have now made a dramatic policy shift of “Paying ransom.”

There are more than 18,000 U.S. based companies doing business in Mexico.

The impact on businesses operating and investing in Mexico has been severely impacted in 2009. A survey conducted by the American Chamber of Commerce of Mexico found that over 58% of their members felt less safe in 2009, then in previous years.

Twenty-seven percent were reconsidering investments in Mexico due to security concerns, according to a poll of the American Chamber's members.

Of particular concern is the impact domestically that the Mexican Drug Trafficking Organizations have within the United States. Because many street gangs are exclusively involved in narcotics sales, either at the retail level or wholesale level the improved transportation and distribution that the MDTO’s provide are lucrative. Additionally, because of the vast profit margins the MDTO’s have also began to squeeze out competition from other major distributors, which has resulted in hundreds of kidnappings, executions and home invasions on rival’s distributors safe houses.

In the NDIC’s 2009 Gang Threat Assessment they indicated that MDTO’s and street gangs, including prison gangs have moved into new relationships for distribution. American gangs will continue to develop and build upon existing relationships through material support, smuggling, and transportation on a regular basis into the United States. In addition, because of the United States failure to address the immigration issue, street gangs and the MDTO’s continue to exploit those who are both sides of the border.

Risk to Law Enforcement
Since the violence has continued to increase in Mexico and routinely spills over in to the United States, the increase risk to law enforcement continues to grow. Many of these Law Enforcement Agencies and their officers’ may not realize the risk that they are facing. Of particular are the increased use of military style weapons, including grenades and Rocket Propelled Grenades (RPG’s), but also in military style tactics. Los Zetas add a level of sophistication not seen by law enforcement previously. This includes intelligence gathering, with insider information, coordinated military actions, deployment with concentrated levels of fire power.

Recently reported by the Mexican Government was the discovery recently that several MDTO’s have begun using Improvised Explosive Devices(IED). In February, the Mexico Military disabled an IED in Oaxaca. In March the Mexican Military seized 50 rifles, 60 hand grenades and eight IED’s.

One only has to wonder how long it will take for either American Street Gangs to utilize this technique here in the United States or for the MDTO’s to use it to protect their investments here?

As an additional industry for the MDTO’s to be involved in is their involvement in Ransoms and Extortion in Mexico. Because the MDTO’s see a large profit in these two crimes the volume of kidnappings for Ransom and Extortion have gone up each year. As a result Mexico has passed a law that all cellular telephones must be registered to a name. This was initiated to impact the use of pay as you go phones that have been used for ransoms, drug dealing and extortion activities in Mexico. How would that work here in the United States, where we are already seeing this occur in several of our border or destinations states for the Drug Cartels? The NAACP would never allow such an action to be put into law.

The risk to American Law Enforcement is extremely grave when you factor in the economic down turn that has hit so many communities. Resulting in the reduction of police officers through layoffs and hiring freezes imposed by reduced tax revenues. Law Enforcement is already spread thin and the line gets thinner as the economy continues to falter. American Law Enforcement Officers are already being tasked with increased responsibilities involving the threat of terrorism, but now coupled with a potential risk from in reality what are Narco-terrorists, the ability to effectively deal with the threat locally is almost impossible.

If not to make things worse, the MDTO’s may be utilizing tactics that are utilized in Special Warfare training manuals, such as what Los Zeta’s would have knowledge of. A series of actions that the MDTO’s may be contributing to either indirectly as a group or individually will continue to de-stabilize Mexico and should be considered a direct threat to the security of the United States.

These tactics include infiltrating enemy ranks and organizations, which would point to Mexican government, law enforcement and military organizations. Gang order of battle, intelligence, penetrates security systems and disrupting supply lines. Create damage, dissension and demoralization, which they MDTO’s have done extremely well through the execution of Police Chiefs, Prosecuting Attorneys, Generals as well as executions of rival MDTO’s and the general public.

The last area of control or disruption is the media. The media in Mexico and abroad has been dramatically impacted both domestically and internationally. The editor of the Mexican paper “Reforma”, based out of Monterrey Mexico must commute from Texas to Mexico weekly out of fear for his life and his family after being threatened. If you control the media you control the method and way to get information out to the masses. That is why in almost every coup, radio, print and television are always seized. Could the MDTO’s be very close to actually taking over Mexico and dividing the country up into MDTO, City States?

Conclusion
The perilous state that Mexico is in, poses a direct threat to the security of the United States. Failure on the part of the Federal Government to act within a timely manner may result in a dangerous financial impact to the United States. Through increased drug addiction, violence at a volume never seen before and increased corruption and criminal activity. Only time will tell if our legislators and those who have sworn to protect us act for the good of the people.