State of Siege: Drug-Related Violence and Corruption in Mexico Unintended Consequences of the War on Drugs

PHOTO BY LAURIE FREEMAN, WOLA LAURIE PHOTO BY Altar to La Santa Muerte outside Nuevo Laredo State of Siege: Drug-Related Violence and Corruption in Mexico Unintended Consequences of the War on Drugs By Laurie Freeman he war on drugs plunged Mexico into violent depths in 2005, especially along its northern border. Drug-related homicides soared, and former elite soldiers on the Tpayroll of a drug cartel were responsible for numerous kidnappings and killings. Murder victims’ tortured bodies frequently appeared on roadsides in key drug trafficking hubs throughout the country – and scores more victims, including more than 40 U.S. citizens, vanished without a trace. From within maximum security prisons, cartel leaders continued to run their illegal enterprises, killing rival inmates and ordering hits on enemies beyond the prison walls. Wild shootouts erupted on city streets as police and soldiers battled criminals, who on occasion were themselves law enforcement officials in the employ of traffickers. This record-breaking year of drug-related violence closed on a chilling note – with the release of a video showing four bound and bloodied men describing to unseen inter- rogators their work as drug cartel assassins and alleging corruption in the highest levels of Mexican law enforcement. The video ends when one man is shot point-blank in the head by his off-camera captor. Hundreds of soldiers and federal police were deployed to a number of Mexican cities ravaged by drug-related violence, but the killings continued, in some cases at accelerated rates. The border city of Nuevo Laredo, for example, which recorded 180 killings in 2005, witnessed 93 in the first four months of 2006 alone. Drug traffickers have become the law of the land in many Mexican cities because of A WOLA Special Report their ability to corrupt and threaten public officials. People view the police with distrust June 2006 and fear, and believe that every security illicit drug trade would transform Mexico force – whether municipal, state, or federal overnight into a paradise of good govern- – has a core group of members who are ment and rule of law. The drug trade did aligned with one cartel or another. not create the institutional problems that Overcoming the violence and corrup- have long plagued Mexico, such as wide- tion wracking Mexico will be incredibly spread corruption, ineffective and abusive difficult; uncovering the truth from beneath police forces and prosecutors’ offices, and its tangled web may be impossible. But a weak judiciary. But the drug trade does reducing drug-related violence and corrup- feed upon, magnify and exacerbate these tion is necessary for Mexico to become a problems. A frank acknowledgement on country governed by the rule of law. the part of both the U.S. and Mexican However, the nature of the drug trade governments of shared responsibility for and the current policies used to combat the causes of the violence besieging Mexi- Drug prohibition as it mean that Mexico cannot achieve this co is the first step to finding more effective enacted and enforced task alone. The United States in particular approaches to reducing it. must share responsibility for overcoming This brief provides an overview of the by the United States violence and corruption in Mexico for two current drug trafficking landscape in Mex- may be intended to reasons. First, cocaine, heroin, marijuana, ico and the extreme drug-related violence keep drug use low, but and methamphetamines are trafficked it has generated in recent years – including through Mexico to meet demand in the more than 2,000 murders since 2005, most there can be no doubt United States, which remains strong and of them unresolved. It also analyzes the im- that it also stimulates in some cases appears to be growing. Even pact of U.S. and Mexican policies intended more fundamentally, the United States has to address the problems of violence and and nourishes organized chosen to prohibit such drugs, a strategy corruption, and offers recommendations crime…. The conse- that in all probability keeps drug use lower for how Mexico and the United States can quences – richer, more than would be the case under some form more effectively confront them. of legalization, but at the cost of creating It is important to bear in mind that drug powerful criminal a large black market where violence and prohibition and the sizable U.S. market for organizations that corruption are the coin of the realm. There illegal drugs make the challenge of ensuring is no sign that either the Democratic or public order and public safety in Mexico create mayhem and Republican party is contemplating a shift immensely more difficult. Under these flout the rule of law – away from the basic U.S. stance of drug conditions, dramatic improvements should are no less real for prohibition, meaning that Mexico will be considered unlikely. With expectations have to contend with the consequences for tempered, modest but nonetheless signifi- being unintended. the foreseeable future. cant improvements should be the goal. Drug prohibition as enacted and enforced by the United States may be intended to keep drug use low, but there can be no doubt that it also stimulates and Cartel Competition nourishes organized crime, both within and Most analysts trace the current brutal beyond U.S. borders. The consequences phase in Mexico’s drug war to early in the – richer, more powerful criminal organiza- administration of President Vicente Fox, tions that create mayhem and flout the rule when one cartel leader escaped from prison of law – are no less real for being unintend- and members of rival groups were killed ed. The U.S. public and policymakers must and jailed. These incidents are thought to be honest about this tradeoff and not avert have altered the balance of power among our gaze from the corruption and violence Mexico’s four main drug trafficking organi- that drug prohibition and the continuing zations (the Sinaloa, Tijuana, Juárez, and U.S. demand for illicit drugs have helped Gulf cartels, named after their places of ori- to fuel in Mexico and other Latin Ameri- gin), which responded by waging an all-out can countries. war for control of key trafficking routes. This is not to suggest that even a sharp In January 2001, Joaquín “El Chapo” reduction in the profits generated by the Guzmán of the Sinaloa cartel escaped 2 State of Siege: Drug-Related Violence and Corruption in Mexico from the Puente Grande federal maximum trained at Fort Bragg and Fort Benning in security prison, spirited out in a laundry the mid-to-late 1990s as part of a U.S. pro- bin after bribing a chain of prison guards gram to train and equip Mexican soldiers and employees. for anti-drug operations, under the logic Meanwhile, the Fox Administration that the police had been infiltrated, out- began closing in on the Tijuana cartel, gunned, and generally overwhelmed by the which was led by brothers Ramón and cartels. The GAFEs’ training emphasized Benjamín Arellano Félix. Ramón was small unit tactics, use of advanced weapons, killed by police in February 2002, and a surveillance techniques, and intelligence month later the Mexican army captured gathering. They were deployed to various his brother Benjamín. These blows against parts of Mexico, particularly in the north, An acknowledgement the Tijuana cartel strengthened its Sinaloa to combat drug traffickers.2 rivals, allowing them to focus their efforts Cárdenas reportedly sent the Zetas to on the part of both on Nuevo Laredo. Nuevo Laredo to eliminate some of the local the U.S. and Mexican Nuevo Laredo is the most important traffickers who had traditionally controlled governments of shared launching point for illegal drugs entering the drug trade there. Their murders in May the United States. Every day an estimated 2002 allowed Cárdenas to consolidate his responsibility for the 6,000 trucks, carrying 40 percent of all grip over the city. He enjoyed supremacy for causes of the violence Mexican exports, cross into Laredo, Texas, almost a year before his arrest in March 2003 besieging Mexico where Interstate 35 whisks them up to after a fierce gun-battle against Mexican Dallas, and from there throughout the soldiers in the streets of Matamoros. He was is the first step to United States. The very conditions that sent to the La Palma maximum security finding more effective make Nuevo Laredo so attractive to legal prison outside Mexico City. commerce also make the city ideal for the The arrests of Arellano and Cárde- approaches illicit drug trade. nas, rather than halting the flow of drugs, to reducing it. Like Chapo Guzmán of the Sinaloa merely altered the balance of power among cartel, Osiel Cárdenas of the Gulf cartel was cartels and opened a Pandora’s Box of vio- also making inroads into Nuevo Laredo. In lence. With Nuevo Laredo up for grabs, the early 2002, Cárdenas enticed a few dozen Sinaloa cartel, bolstered by blows against elite soldiers – members of special forces its rivals, moved in with a vengeance. groups that had been sent by the Mexican Violence skyrocketed as the Zetas battled government to combat drug trafficking in to retain the Gulf cartel’s power over the northern Mexico – to desert the army and city, and the Sinaloa cartel’s gunmen vied become his enforcers and security spe- to wrest it from them. cialists. Known as the Zetas, their inside Putting some of the country’s most- knowledge of the Mexican security forces wanted cartel leaders in prison did not and their expertise with sophisticated effectively remove them from the drug weaponry, intelligence gathering, surveil- trade. Federal prisons, which had once lance techniques, and operational planning been considered less corrupt than state gave Cárdenas an edge over his competitors.

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