Appeals Court Upholds Sentence for Maimed Smuggler
July 3rd, 2009 by Russ
One of the most politicized cases in the Border Patrol’s history, crept on Monday as a federal appeals court upheld a sentence levied on a Mexican drug smuggler who was shot by two agents on the U.S./Mexican border. Osvaldo Aldrete-Davila, who had tried to smuggle over 700 lbs of weed across the border, on several occasions, was given a nine and a half year prison sentence for smuggling that occurred after U.S. Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean shot him in the buttocks and groin.
The details of the shooting and subsequent trials and media circus are quite convoluted. Salon managed to wrap it up pretty well a few years ago. In a nutshell, Ramos and Compean botched an attempt to apprehend the smuggler (Aldrete-Davila), shot at him as he fled, attempted to cover up the shooting by having another agent return to clean up the shell casings, and couldn’t agree on a coherent story when pressed by prosecutors.
As the two agents were being sentenced for egregious violations of their enforcement codes (and attempted murder), some conservative media figures (including CNN zombie-anchor, Lou Dobbs) decided to brand the agents as patriotic, U.S. turf-defending heroes. In the interim, the peripheral press began reporting a completely revised version of the pursuit and shooting story, and a petition emerged to set the agents free. Luckily for the agents, former Premiere Bush does watch TV (he famously never read newspapers), and responded to the conservative pleas by commuting the sentences of Ramos and Compean.
So, two corrupt Border Patrol agents run free and one smuggler with a shot up urethra gets a full term. The moral of the story here is that what actually happens on the ground is never as important as how it all ends up in the spin room. When it comes to politics, the motives of interest groups far, far, outweigh reason and truth.
Mexican Street Dealers Dying in Droves
June 29th, 2009 by Russ
The Modesto Bee told a heart-wrenching story last weekend of a young Tijuana meth dealer named Hector Rodriguez Estrada, who was killed in cold blood along with his pregnant girlfriend, by a rival gang attempting to seize his drug turf. The story gives a face to the deteriorating social system in many parts of Mexico, in which cities are morphing into nothing more than shooting galleries between rival cartels.
In impoverished areas where factory workers make $60 a week, selling meth on a corner can be a very attractive economic option. According to Rodriguez’s older brother, Samuel:
When you live by the sea, you look for fish.
In other words, for many people in the poorest nations of the world, drug production or distribution is not a moral or ethical issue. It’s a matter of survival. These people exist within a black market that provides massive financial incentives to participate. Without any regulation or government-imposed morality, there is also a huge incentive to kill off competitors. This is a completely free market economy. There are no longer any rules or norms.
Perhaps once cartels saw benefit in respecting rival turf and developing in areas without conflict. But an aggressive campaign by President Calderon, coupled with an influx of US military weapons and aid has created a virtual anarchy to replace a tenuous balance. Tijuana drug rivalries fueled 443 murders in the last three months of 2008. Gang members were left in dumpsters by the dozens with severed heads, limbs, and fingers.
Until this economic system is supplanted with another, the cycle of violence will continue. There will be many more Hector Rodriguez Estradas. And there will be just as many rivals willing to punch his ticket for a new drug corner to run. Madness begets madness.
Mexican Congress Passes Drug Decriminalization
June 26th, 2009 by Russ
Early this week, a major blow was struck against the modern War on Drugs. Faced with a unprecedented drug crisis threatening to spill over its already porous borders, the Mexican legislature decriminalized the possession of drugs intended for personal use.
Done relatively quietly because of a worsening Swine Flu outbreak, the Mexican lower house approved a measure that had already passed the Senate to allow Mexicans to carry up to five grams of pot, half a gram of cocaine, .04 grams of meth, and .05 grams of heroin. The bill also acts to eliminate mandatory minimum sentences for small-time drug dealers.
The bill now awaits the signature of President Felipe Calderón, which is expected to happen shortly. Though Calderón had gained a reputation as a staunch enemy of local drug cartels, he offered up the decriminalization legislature as an emergency measure to loosen the burden on Mexico’s prisons and overtaxed law enforcement.
According to Rafael Ruiz Mena, head of Mexico’s National Institute of Penal Sciences:
The important thing is… that consumers are not treated as criminals. It is a public health problem, not a penal problem.
The referred to public health problem has become a serious drain on Mexico’s resources. As we reported last month, the addiction rate in Mexico has increased by 50% since the violence between the government and cartels began to escalate. A fragmenting of the traditional cartel structure has flooded the Mexican market with cheaper, purer substances that have moved street level dealing and use out of any semblance of control.
It’s a shame that the situation had to deteriorate to this point before the Mexican government agreed to take steps toward adopting a more rational drug policy. Perhaps transitioning to a system that seeks to help non-violent addicts (instead of demonizing them) will restore the people’s faith in Mexican government, and stem the breakdown of Mexican civil society.
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.
DEA Proud of Own ‘Operation Three Star’
June 11th, 2009 by Russ
Recently, Houston news site Chron.com ran a weekend piece on a local DEA sting branded ‘Operation Three Star’. Through use of a converted informant, drug agents were able to work slowly through a branch of a Mexican cartel operating in Houston. Ultimately, agents seized a few thousand pounds of cocaine and a few million dollars in drug money.
The major arrest cited in the story was of an elderly grandmother name Elisa Castillo. She was given life in prison for what she claims was simply agreeing to have several vehicles registered in her name. As someone who had worked 20 years as an obtrician before retirement, she doesn’t exactly fit the profile of a hardened criminal and drug boss.
In fact, according to the story, the biggest ‘break’ in the case lead to information on a mid-level cartel operative known as Leal Gonzalez. After spending dozens of hours staking out his smuggling route and finally pinning him to a black Volkswagon, the DEA lost him. He remains at large.
According to the report:
Of the people arrested on federal drug-trafficking charges, some had full-time jobs as criminals, others kept day jobs… Others snared included a tractor-trailer driver, a printing shop employee, a tire shop owner, a bus baggage handler, a man who drove a taxi back in Mexico. Several told authorities they had made money buying and selling used cars.
All those drugs on the table and the DEA managed to avoid arresting a single major cartel officer. Instead, they focused their efforts on pawns, part-timers, and patsies. Yup, just another day squandered in the War on Drugs.
Mexican National Hangs Ten, Loses Twenty-Four
June 9th, 2009 by Rick
Maybe he didn’t want to hike across treacherous American terrain to smuggle in marijuana, but a 30-year old Mexican man was thinking outside the box when he decided to get on a surfboard and paddle to the land of opportunity, bringing with him, 24 pounds of herb.
As with any Wile E. Coyote plans cooked up by drug traffickers, the would-be surfer was seen paddling about 200 yards off Imperial Beach by U.S Border Patrol agents. Seeing that the gig was up, he tossed a blue duffel bag containing an estimated $74,400 worth of pot into the ocean, which eventually washed ashore.
AZ Border Patrol Agents Seize 300 Pounds
June 4th, 2009 by Rick
On May 29, nine smugglers from Guaymas, Mexico, carrying bundles of marijuana in backpacks, were arrested by Border Patrol agents from the Wellton station, near Aztec, AZ. Pings on a radar from a roving surveillance system first discovered at least seven of the smugglers, trekking the popular but dangerous route — at least 60 miles from the border.
Initially three smugglers were arrested and then the other six were tracked down by Border Patrol. On June 1st, the Yuma County Narcotics Task Force was called in and after an investigation the suspects were booked and charged with possession and intent to distribute.
Nearly 300 pounds of the marijuana were seized, a street value of $116,160.
Mexico’s Drug Crusade Plagues Citizens
May 22nd, 2009 by Russ
Over the last few months, stories of the debilitating drug violence in Mexico have become commonplace in the US media. While the murders of civilians and law enforcement officers continue to climb, other casualties of this escalation are going unnoticed. As reported in the Christian Science Monitor, the government’s assault on Mexican cartels has vastly increased the availability of drugs in the country.
As major cartels are targeted by Mexican law enforcement, they have begun to fragment, causing more competition among a greater pool of lower-level dealers. When the cartel hierarchies break down, the additional competition for sales not only increases the purity of the product (be it cocaine, heroin, or methamphetamines), but also considerably decreases the price. At current rates, a gram of cocaine can be had for as little as $11, a price that is one-third that of a few decades ago.
This flooding of the market has created an entire new generation of addicts. Over the last six years, Mexico has suffered a 50% rise in addiction, towards a number approaching half a million.
Short of creating a completely facist, totalitatiran state (something well beyond the abilities of Mexican authorities) there seems to be absolutely no violence-based solution to the drug problem. In the meantime, Mexico is being laid to waste by its denial of the immutable, uncompromising laws of the drug trade.
