Pubdate: Mon,  1 Aug 2005
Source: San Jose Mercury News (CA)
Copyright: 2005 San Jose Mercury News
Contact:  http://www.mercurynews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/390
Author: Pablo Bachelet, Knight Ridder
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topics/mexico

MEXICO NOW DOMINATES U.S. DRUG DISTRIBUTION

Dea: Colombia Is No Longer No. 1 In $400 Billion Annual Trade

WASHINGTON - Mexican drug traffickers have pushed aside their
Colombian counterparts and now dominate the U.S. market in the biggest
reorganization of the trade since the rise of the Colombian cartels in
the 1980s, U.S. officials say.

Mexican groups now are behind much of the cocaine, heroin, marijuana
and methamphetamine on U.S. streets, the officials say, with Mexican
law enforcement agencies viewed as either too weak or too corrupt to
stop them.

Mexico's role as a drug-trafficking hub has been growing for some
time, but its grip on the $400 billion-a-year trade has strengthened
in recent years. According to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration
in June, 92 percent of the cocaine sold in the United States in 2004
came through the U.S.-Mexico border, compared with 77 percent in 2003.

Officials describe the Mexican cartels as business-savvy, tight-knit
family affairs that operate weblike networks of international
partnerships. The Colombian cartels controlled the drug trade from its
production to its wholesale distribution. The Mexicans tend to focus
more on distribution, the business' most lucrative leg.

Anthony Placido, the DEA's top intelligence official, told a
congressional panel in June that the Mexican gangs have links to
groups from Colombia, the Dominican Republic and Jamaica, and ``street
gangs, prison gangs, and outlaw motorcycle gangs, who conduct most of
the retail and street-level distribution throughout the country.''

Mexican drug rings offer a more varied menu of drugs than their
Colombian counterparts, who traditionally dealt in cocaine and heroin.
According to the DEA, Mexico is the second-largest supplier of heroin
in the United States after Colombia, and the largest foreign supplier
of marijuana.

Mexican gangs also are becoming a major force in the burgeoning
methamphetamine trade by setting up production laboratories on both
sides of the U.S.-Mexican border. In 2004, a record 3,600 pounds of
methamphetamine was seized along the southwest border, a 74 percent
rise since 2001.

Placido said the administration of President Vicente Fox has had some
success in undermining Mexico's traditional drug smuggling cartels and
upped its cooperation with its U.S. counterparts. But new traffickers
and syndicates have risen in their place.

Officials blame a turf war among Mexican drug cartels for a wave of
killings and kidnappings along the Mexican side of the border that
prompted the U.S. State Department to issue three travel advisories
warning U.S. citizens to stay away, including one July 26.
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MAP posted-by: Larry Seguin