Supply Chain and the Cartels
the drug war is getting literal
An official from the DEA explained that all of the street fentanyl in the U.S. comes from Mexico at the hands of two cartels: the Sinaloa and the Jalisco. Most of the street fentanyl in the U.S. is distributed by the Sinaloa cartel, which operates in every U.S. state and in 47 countries.
The cartels import the chemicals necessary to make fentanyl from China into Mexico and Guatemala. Then they manufacture the drug, distribute it in the U.S., and launder the money, much of it through cryptocurrency…
They have hundreds of employees and are equipped with military-grade weapons. The Department of Justice added that they “allegedly used cargo aircraft, private aircraft, submarines and other submersible and semi–submersible vessels, container ships, supply vessels, go–fast boats, fishing vessels, buses, rail cars, tractor trailers, automobiles, and private and commercial interstate and foreign carriers to transport their drugs and precursor chemicals…
They allegedly maintained a network of couriers, tunnels, and stash houses throughout Mexico and the United States to further their drug-trafficking activities…to import the drugs into the United States,”
Where they kill as many as 200 people a day.”
While the Biden/Harris administration was busy promoting harm reduction at home, it seemed like every few months another Latin American country was getting sucked into the drug trade. (See map below) the Trump Administration is taking our national addiction and overdose emergency seriously. That said, we can’t just be bombing the drug boats. Republicans want to kill drug dealers and Democrats want to allow drug users to kill themselves. There’s a lot of room in between for better policy.
November 2024: The Economist took a deep dive on Ecuador in lengthy reporting: A journey through the world’s newest narco-state. Drugs transformed Ecuador from a Latin American success story into a war zone. In another bluntly titled article published the same week: The World is Losing the Fight Against International Gangs, The Economist states:
The second factor is a boom in drug use, which is being fueled in part by the spread of synthetic drugs, which frees gangs from some of the restraints of geography since they are not reliant on plants such as coca trees or poppies that grow best in particular places. Seizures of methamphetamine in East and South-East Asia, for instance, increased fourfold between 2103 and 2022…Prices have fallen by more than half as criminal gangs have scaled up production, which in turn has increased demand.
Worldwide, the number of people taking drugs has increased by a fifth between 2010 and 2020, and the drugs they consume are becoming progressively stronger. Fentanyl is 50 times more potent than heroin. But it is being supplanted by newer drugs, such as etonitazene, which is perhaps 500 times stronger than heroin.
The practical, scientific and logistical know-how that experts thought would keep drug recipes out of mass production in the 1990s — when ECSTASY was the most pernicious street drug — has been realized. And then some. Apparently, it’s not hard to make fentanyl, but it requires synthetic chemicals. It can’t be grown or assembled from organic pieces. Before the internet authorities could track the ingredients sold in quantities large enough to suggest drug manufacturing. That interdiction tool has been lost. And laundering drug money through new forms of collateral exchange like cryptocurrency is a tool dealers have gained.
Fentanyl isn’t the only street drug and MEXICO isn’t the only regional country in the drug business (they’re just the biggest, closest and most militarized). GUATEMALA is a staging state for Chinese chemicals en route to Mexico. HONDURAS has started producing cocaine with a “new generation of drug traffickers” and forced labor selling stateside. Armed commandos have recently been fighting for control of the drug trade in COLOMBIA. In recently peaceful ECUADOR, “local criminal gangs are being schooled by former Colombian guerrillas and managed by the Mexican Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation cartels“.
COSTA RICA which “surpassed Mexico to become the world’s leading transshipment point for cocaine destined for the United States, Europe and beyond in 2020”, expanded into fentanyl in 2024 as well. That isn’t pura vida it’s pura muerte.
It was announced late November 2024 that BOLIVIA’s former top official fighting drugs will be extradited to the US where he faces drug trafficking charges. And keep an eye on CANADA.
News Flash: GUILTY!! The Former Highest Ranking Law Enforcement Official in Mexico Took Millions of Dollars in Bribes from the Sinaloa Cartel and Enabled Transportation of More Than One Million Kilograms of Cocaine to the United States and has been sentenced to over 38 years imprisonment.
How a Tourist Paradise Became a Drug-Trafficking Magnet
New York Times
Maria Abi-Habib
September 17, 2024
Homicides in Costa Rica soared 53 percent from 2020 to 2023, according to government figures. The same is happening in nearby Caribbean countries, with rising homicide rates a result of gangs competing over drug markets, the United Nations said in 2023.
In Costa Rica, schools are becoming crime scenes, with parents gunned down while dropping their children off. Plastic bags filled with severed limbs have been discovered in parks. A patient was recently shot dead inside a hospital by members of a rival gang.
There used to be a limit here, people weren’t killed indiscriminately,” Mario Zamora Cordero, Costa Rica’s minister of public security, said in an interview.
Local gangs battle for control of routes within the country, a competition in greed and ruthlessness to become the local muscle for the rival Mexican criminal groups operating here, largely the Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation cartels.
What we are witnessing, we have never seen before. It’s the Mexicanization of violence, to provoke terror and panic.”
Public policy should support DECREASING the drug supply.
Today’s drug dealer is not a hippie grandma selling homemade hash brownies sprinkled with love. It’s diabolically criminal gangs who are committing atrocities that contribute to global displacement, loss of life and terror. Also, cocaine is baaack.
