DEA: Mexican cartels are taking over

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As the Obama administration continues with its weak border policies, the Drug Enforcement Administration is warning that one of the biggest criminal threats Americans face is Mexican traffickers moving freely across the southern border.

That Mexican cartels are moving huge amounts of drugs across the southern border certainly isn’t news.

As we noted back in 2013:

Selling marijuana to U.S. citizens is grossing cartels anywhere from $2 billion to $20 billion annually, depending on whose estimates you believe. And a growing market for the purer variety of methamphetamine that the cartels are able to produce in industrial-style “superlabs” in Mexico is also driving profits.

And as we noted in 2014:

National Border Patrol Council President Brandon Judd told members of Congress that laws requiring special treatment for young people coming into the United States illegally have tied up roughly 40 percent of Border Patrol manpower. The union president told lawmakers that the Barack Obama Administration’s “catch and release” immigration policies are largely to blame.

And as we noted on several other occasions.

But what’s striking about the DEA’s 2015 National Drug Threat Assessment is the amount of ground Mexican drug cartels have been able to claim within U.S. territory, thanks to the Obama administration’s immigration policies.

Nearly every major Mexican cartel now has territory in the U.S., including:

• Los Cuinis
• Beltran-Leyva Organization (BLO)
• La Familia Michoacana
• Gulf Cartel
• Jalisco Cartel — New Generation (CJNG)
• Juarez Cartel
• The Knights Templar
• Sinaloa Cartel
• The Zetas

And that’s bad news for crime in major U.S. cities as well as more rural areas of the nation.

“These Mexican poly-drug organizations traffic heroin, methamphetamine, cocaine, and marijuana throughout the United States, using established transportation routes and distribution networks,” the DEA report said. “They control drug trafficking across the Southwest Border and are moving to expand their share of US illicit drug markets, particularly heroin markets. National-level gangs and neighborhood gangs continue to form relationships with Mexican TCOs to increase profits for the gangs through drug distribution and transportation, for the enforcement of drug payments, and for protection of drug transportation corridors from use by rival gangs.”

Here’s a DEA map that illustrates cartel influence throughout the nation:

According to the DEA, the cartels operate and grow thanks to “a supply chain system that functions on an as-needed basis” and taking on new members known via family ties and friendships.

“There are no other organizations at this time with the infrastructure and power to challenge Mexican TCOs for control of the US drug market,” the DEA report said. “Mexican TCOs will continue to serve primarily as wholesale suppliers of drugs to the United States to distance themselves from US law enforcement. Mexican TCOs will continue to rely on US-based gangs to distribute drugs at the retail level.”

 

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