Frozen Sharks Are the New Drug Mules, Mexico Cracks Down
June 18th, 2009 by RickArmed officers of the Mexican Navy patroling the Gulf coast port of Progreso in Yucatan state seized a ton of cocaine on board a freight ship. X-ray machines and drug sniffing dogs helped uncover the smuggling operation, which stashed “slabs” of cocaine within more than 20 frozen sharks.
Mexican Navy Commander Eduardo Villa said:
We are talking about more than a ton of cocaine that was inside the ship. [...] Those in charge of the shipment said it was a conserving agent but after checks we confirmed it was cocaine.
On Tuesday the Mexican Navy revealed the largest methamphetamine lab in Mexico. Initially thought to be used to water a marijuana plantation, a holding tank, in the remote part of the northern state of Sinaloa, was discovered to feed water into two huge sheds, which contained ephedrine (12,905 gallons), a chemical agent used to make methamphetamine.
Officials claim that it was enough to manufacture 40.2 tons of material, which could equate to 309 million individual hits. That’s enough to give everyone in the United States one dose and still have 3 million left over. That was from one source. How many other high level operations are scattered throughout the country that are under the radar? Too many.
For this reason, Mexican President Felipe Calderon sent 45,000 troops and federal police to wage war with the cartels to try and stop the drug violence in his country. This year alone 2,700 people have been killed due to drug related violence, while last year 6,300 were killed.
President Obama should take note because the cartels have already crossed the border in numerous ways, which has brought their violence and drugs into the states. However, Mexico realized that the problem was not just the organized crime element, they discovered that prohibition wasn’t working. They had the fortitude and sense to go ahead and legalize personal amounts of various recreational drugs and stop populating their prison system with drug related offenses.
Mexico was given $1.4 billion by the United States to fund their war on the cartels. That money allowed to purchase the mobile technology used by the Mexican Navy. Many high level bosses have been already captured and many more are now being hunted down. Corrupted officials connected to various cartels have been uncovered. Cartel operations have been uncovered in all of North America.
Argentina Gets in on All That Meth Fun
October 15th, 2008 by Perry
In the search for new places to traffic manufactured Ephedrine, the active ingredient in methamphetamines, Mexican, Columbian and Peruvian cartels have moved operations to Argentina.
Argentina, like Mexico, is not a manufacturer of ephedrine. But, the country’s pharmaceutical sector is a major importer, buying mostly from China and India.
Crackdowns have had the unfortunate and inevitable side effect of raising the street value due to scarcity, which has increased the violence. Even more alarming, the article quotes that imports of ephedrine to Argentina recently began to soar – from 2.9 tons in 2004 to 19.1 tons in 2007, according to government figures.
