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Inside Mexico's Drug

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Inside Mexico's Drug Tomas Kellner and Francesco Pipitone are senior directors of Kroll Associates. Inside Mexico’s Drug War Tomas Kellner and Francesco Pipitone AGUASCALIENTES, Mexico—Just before state’s rocky plateaus, involving some five noon on February 15, 2007, four municipal dozen federal police patrol cars and a mili - police officers in Aguascalientes, the pictur - tary helicopter. Later that day, with the esque capital of the central Mexican state gunmen and the drivers of the escape vehi - bearing the same name, were called to a cles captured and in police custody, Aguas - mundane road accident. An overturned, calientes State Attorney Xavier González black Chevy Suburban with out-of-state Fisher tried to reassure the rattled public. license plates was blocking traffic on the He told the media that the burst of violence quiet Boulevard John Paul II that runs was an isolated incident. “Aguascalientes is through the city’s sleepy western suburbs. quiet, is at peace...this does not happen When local police commander Juan José every day.” For a long time, his words Navarro Rincón and his three colleagues ar - might have served as an accurate description rived, they saw two men who did not appear of the state of affairs in Aguascalientes. But to be hurt, removing AK-47 assault rifles the incident was a telltale mark that the and police uniforms from the crashed vehi - bloody, corrosive nexus of drugs, crime, and cle to a white Nissan sport utility vehicle corruption growing malignantly along the (SUV ) parked nearby. Navarro Rincón called Mexico-U.S. border has metastasized to re - for reinforcements. He was about to arrest gions previously immune to this cancer . the pair when two other cars came to an abrupt stop just up the road. Three gunmen Moving Northward climbed out and opened fire with automatic In some respects, the Mexican problem is weapons. Navarro Rincón was killed in - the result of Colombia’s successful war on stantly. Three other officers also died. the Cali and Medellín drug cartels in the The killings, dubbed “Black Thursday” 1990s. Pablo Escobar Gaviria, the notorious by the local press, were the first shootings of leader of the Medellín Cartel, was gunned police officers in Aguascalientes by drug down by police commandos in 1993. Broth - gangs. Until then, Aguascalientes had been ers Gilberto and Miguel Rodriguez Ore - a quiet place, immune to the violence that juela, who formed and ran the Cali Cartel, was raging in cities along the U.S.-Mexico were captured in 1995, and later extradited border and elsewhere in the country. The to the United States to serve 30-year prison firefight sparked a manhunt throughout the sentences. Although the Cali and Medellín © 2010 World Policy Institute 29 cartels continued to operate, the removal of United States,” McCaffrey observed. This their leaders weakened them and created an also ended the Colombians’ monopoly and opening for Mexican organized crime set the stage for the war that followed. groups, such as the Guadalajara Cartel led As the Mexican cartels expanded their by Miguel “El Pardino” (“the Godfather”) control over the drug supply chain, revenues Ángel Félix Gallardo and his successors , to exploded. There are no precise historical seize control of the lucrative North Ameri - figures describing the size of the business. can drug trade. But, by any account, there was an enormous The Guadalajara Cartel and similar amount of money to be made. In 2002, for - groups had traditionally moved the Colom - mer U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft bian drugs north. Félix Gallardo cultivated described the size of the U.S. drug market, friendships with politicians, businessmen , reporting that Americans spent $62.9 and journalists, as well as with other drug billion on drugs in 2000. More than half lords. Distributing power and spoils, he ($36.1 billion ), was spent on cocaine— built a nationwide trafficking network of which an estimated 90 percent transits whose members rarely resorted to violence. through Mexico. In 2009, the U.S. National Under Félix Gallardo’s system, territories Drug Intelligence Center estimated that were carved out for local chieftains, and Mexican and Colombian drug trafficking whenever another group needed access to organizations generated somewhere in the his region, a tribute was paid. Though he range of $17 billion to $38 billion annually was captured by the Mexican government in in gross wholesale proceeds from drug sales 1989, Félix Gallardo remained in charge, in the United States. By comparison, orchestrating meetings and dividing territo - Google’s worldwide revenue in 2009 was ry from prison. It was ultimately a failing $23.6 billion. effort. With the Guadalajara Cartel’s ring - As earnings shot up, so did violence. leader locked up and the Colombians under Starting in the mid-1990s, drug gangs in attack, others started developing their own Mexico grew more independent and began drug operations from scratch—covering fighting for more control and larger territo - transportation, warehousing, and, eventual - ries. A decades-long war, which has claimed ly, the sale of the product itself . some 20,000 lives so far, broke out between Barry R. McCaffrey, former director of Félix Gallardo’s lieutenant, Joaquín “El the U.S. Office of National Drug Control Chapo” (“Shorty”) Guzmán, currently Mexi - Policy, testified before the Senate that the co’s most wanted person, and rival drug “Colombians paid the Mexican trafficking lords. Gone was Félix Gallardo’s divide-and- organizations $1,500 to $2,000 for each conquer approach, replaced by intimidation, kilogram of cocaine smuggled to the United brazen violence, and the executions of offi - States.” But during the 1990s, as a more cials and anyone else who dared stand in the chaotic arrangement began to take shape, way . By 200 4, the war had reached a sim - the Colombian and Mexican trafficking mer: the first mass graves started to appear groups established a new deal allowing in Mexico, and newspapers carried accounts the Mexicans to receive a percentage of the of gruesome killings involving beheadings cocaine in each shipment as payment for and acid. In the border town of Nuevo Lare - their transportation services. “This ‘pay - do, more than 100 people were murdered ment-in-product’ agreement enabled Mexi - from January to August, 2005. can organizations to become involved in President Vicente Fox had taken a rela - the wholesale distribution of cocaine in the tively soft approach to combating the vio - 30 WORLD POLICY JOURNAL • SPRING 2010 ©Associated Press Another one bites the dust. lence, but all that changed when President of the major players today. The Mexican Felipe Calderón took office on December 1, drug wars have seen the rise of two domi - 2006 . Within weeks, some 6,500 troops nant cartels, which have elevated indiscrimi - were dispatched to the state of Michoacán nate violence and coercion to levels previ - (along the country’s mid-Pacific coast) to ously unimaginable. The Sinaloa gang is the curtail drug violence. It was of little avail. country’s largest cartel, based on the volume McCaffrey testified in 2009 that “squad- of drugs it moves. It grew out of the coastal sized units of the police and [Mexican] army state of Sinaloa, once known for its poppy have been tortured, murdered, and their de - fields and opium gum produced by Chinese capitated bodies publicly left on display.” immigrants. Now it is produced by hun - Media accounts appeared describing in - dreds of thousands of Mexican campesinos . stances where the police auctioned their The Sinaloa Cartel operates up Mexico’s loyalty to the highest bidder. Today, some Pacific coast and along the U.S. border— 45,000 Mexican troops—about a quarter of from Tijuana in the west, to Ciudad Juárez the standing army—are engaged in a do - and Nuevo Laredo in the east. Since a differ - mestic war with drug cartels, which shows ent chief, or capo (the Mexican cartels have no signs of abating anytime soon . adopted the same terminology as their mafia counterparts ), controls each territory, Rise of the New Cartels the Sinaloa Cartel has also become known Amid such seemingly indiscriminate as “The Federation.” But at the top of the violence, it’s critical to understand who is chain sits Félix Gallardo’s former lieutenant, fighting whom, and to have a little history “El Chapo” Guzmán ; Forbes magazine esti - Inside Mexico’s Drug War 31 mates his wealth at $1 billion. The U.S. Today, it is not clear who runs the Gulf government is offering a $5 million reward Cartel; but Los Zetas appears to play an im - for his capture. portant role. Though most experts seem to The second group is the Gulf Cartel, ascribe a unique decentralized structure to founded in the 1970s in the northeastern the cartel, in 2009, the U.S. Department of border state of Tamaulipas, along the Gulf the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Con - of Mexico. The Gulf Cartel grew dramati - trol named Cárdenas Guillén’s brother, Eze - cally during the chaos of the early 1990s, quiel “Tony Tormenta” Cárdenas Guillén, expanding its territory and moving from and Jorge Eduardo “El Coss” Costilla drug trafficking into direct sales, while en - Sánchez as the nominal leaders. gaging in a host of other nefarious rackets. Much of the current violence in Mexico The growth inevitably brought them into can be attributed to a war raging between conflict with “El Chapo” Guzmán and the the Sinaloa Cartel and Los Zetas , among oth - Sinaloa Cartel. But while the Sinaloa Cartel er smaller participants. The war erupted in tried to maintain the veneer of a legitimate 2003 over control of the city of Nuevo Lare - business enterprise, the Gulf Cartel bur - do, the home of Los Zetas and the country’s nished a bloody, violent image.
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