RGANIZING RIME IN THE ARGINS O C M THE ENTERPRISES AND PEOPLE OF THE AMERICAN DRUG TRADE A Thesis Presented for Doctor of Philosophy in Criminology, 2017 Rajeev Gundur Cardiff University To my dad, who planned on living a lot longer than he did. Table of Contents Table of Figures ____________________________________________ vi Table of Photos ____________________________________________ vi Administrative Requirements_________________________________ vii Declaration ________________________________________________________ vii Statement 1: Degree Requirement _____________________________________ vii Statement 2: Claim of Independent Work _______________________________ vii Statement 3: Open Access Consent ____________________________________ vii Summary _________________________________________________________ viii Acknowledgements ________________________________________ ix Author’s Note _____________________________________________ xi I: Getting Organized _________________________________________ 1 One: A Security State of Mind ____________________________________ 2 America the Mistrustful _______________________________________________ 2 Panic About the Drug Trade ___________________________________________ 3 Organized Crime and the Drug Trade: Organizations, Networks, or Beyond? ____ 6 The Settings, Events, and Sequences of the Drug Trade __________________ 10 Understanding Markets: A Strategy for Analysing the Drug Trade __________ 10 Focusing on the Drug Trade Through a Different Lens ______________________ 12 A Look Ahead: Deconstructing Rhetoric and Examining Empirics _____________ 14 Two: Looking Under Water______________________________________ 19 In the ‘Hood for the First Time ________________________________________ 19 Commissioning: Preparing for Fieldwork ________________________________ 20 What’s in a Name? _______________________________________________ 26 Casting a Net: Using the Internet to Recruit Respondents ___________________ 28 Casting a Line: Targeted Online Recruitment _____________________________ 35 A Note on Women and Online Recruitment ___________________________ 36 Diving In: Going Gonzo and Situational Participant Recruitment _____________ 36 Going Gonzo ____________________________________________________ 37 Situational Participant Recruitment (Gonzo Recruitment) ________________ 38 Interviewing in the Comfort Zone ______________________________________ 39 iii | Table of Contents II: Two Sides of the Same Coin ________________________________ 43 El Paso and Ciudad Juárez: Down the Rio Grande ____________________ 44 Docking in El Paso __________________________________________________ 44 Looking around at Ground Level _______________________________________ 47 Juárez Vice ________________________________________________________ 50 Three: Bigger Fish to Fry ________________________________________ 56 The Sky is Falling!? __________________________________________________ 56 Barriers to Access ___________________________________________________ 57 Typical Cases ______________________________________________________ 60 The Baddies _______________________________________________________ 64 The Latino Threat Narrative in Immigration Court _________________________ 69 Vague Threats and “Common Criminality” _______________________________ 70 Mexico through the Lens of Immigration Court ___________________________ 73 Four: Taking Care of Business ____________________________________ 76 Get Shorty ________________________________________________________ 76 Protection Affords Opportunity _______________________________________ 77 The Protection Market in Mexico ______________________________________ 80 The Liberalization of Politics and the Protection Market ____________________ 82 Business in the Old Days _____________________________________________ 84 A Market in Transition _______________________________________________ 87 Signalling a Change _________________________________________________ 89 The New “Business as Usual” _________________________________________ 93 Five: La Carrucha (The Ride) ____________________________________ 101 A Latent Fear _____________________________________________________ 101 The Spillover Concern ______________________________________________ 101 Barrio Azteca Begins _______________________________________________ 104 Difficulties with Prison Politics: Establishing Authority and Maintaining Control 112 Collective Action in the Protection Market ______________________________ 117 Prisoner Solidarity Organizations ___________________________________ 117 Psalm 28:7 _____________________________________________________ 120 Prison Gangs or Prison States? _____________________________________ 121 Six: A Kind of Hush in El Paso ___________________________________ 123 Nobody’s Posting Up _______________________________________________ 123 The Street Gangs of El Paso __________________________________________ 127 Prison Politics on the Street _________________________________________ 129 Asserting Respect _______________________________________________ 130 O rganizing Crime in the Margins | iv A Respect Deficit ________________________________________________ 133 The Drug Trade at the Border ________________________________________ 135 Getting Connected ______________________________________________ 136 Adding Value ___________________________________________________ 138 Business at the Border ___________________________________________ 140 III: Of Relationships and Reality ______________________________ 143 Phoenix: An Oasis in the Sonoran Desert _________________________ 144 Moving to Phoenix _________________________________________________ 144 The Room Search __________________________________________________ 145 Moving In ________________________________________________________ 146 Navigating through Phoenician Politics and Risk Claims ___________________ 147 Seven: A Fear of Corners_______________________________________ 150 Delivery: Devolved Drug Dealing ______________________________________ 150 The Drug Trade in Phoenix __________________________________________ 151 The Retail Market _______________________________________________ 153 The Corner ___________________________________________________ 153 The House ___________________________________________________ 157 The Number _________________________________________________ 159 The Plug _____________________________________________________ 163 The Wholesale Market ___________________________________________ 167 Smokescreening via Compartmentalization: Division of Labour _________ 169 Distance Decay _______________________________________________ 172 Eight: Perspective, Protection, and Power ________________________ 176 Keeping Perspective ________________________________________________ 176 The Street Gangs of Phoenix _________________________________________ 178 The Prison Gangs of Arizona _________________________________________ 181 Money Makes the Yard Go ‘Round __________________________________ 184 Between La Calle and La Pinta ________________________________________ 187 Unlikely Bedfellows: Cooperating on the Outside ______________________ 189 Business Brings Relative Calm ________________________________________ 190 IV: Making it in the Margins ________________________________ 193 Chicago: The Big City __________________________________________ 194 Chicagoland ______________________________________________________ 194 Chicago as a “Social Laboratory” ______________________________________ 196 The Underpinnings of “Gangland” ____________________________________ 197 v | Table of Contents A Brief History of Gangs and Organized Crime in Chicago __________________ 203 The Political Functions of Early Gangs in Chicago ______________________ 205 A New Generation of Gangs _______________________________________ 206 The Birth of Two Nations__________________________________________ 208 Gangs in Business _______________________________________________ 209 Wholesale Drug Trafficking in Chicago from the 1970s __________________ 210 Nine: The Struggle to Make It ___________________________________ 213 The Anatomy of Chicago’s Biggest Ever Drug Trafficking Organization ________ 213 Lessons from the Flores’ Arrest about Chicago’s Wholesale Drug Trade ______ 215 Lesson 1: The Flores DTO operated as a contractor. ____________________ 216 Lesson 2: Typical wholesaling arrangements are in flux and numerous. ____ 217 Getting Connected ____________________________________________ 218 The Clique as an Enterprise _____________________________________ 221 Lesson 3: Protection and violence in Chicago is (mostly) a function of gangs, not the cartel contractors. ___________________________________________________ 223 Little Direct Cartel Violence _____________________________________ 223 Gang Life and Street Violence ___________________________________ 225 Lesson 4: The money of the drug trade is hard to follow. ________________ 231 Chicago is Its Own Animal ___________________________________________ 235 Ten: Illicit Enterprise in the Margins of Society _____________________ 236 Breaking Down the Drug Trade: Revisiting Its Settings, Events, and their Sequences ________________________________________________________________________ 238 Settings Matter _________________________________________________ 238 Protection as a Market and an Ongoing “Event” _______________________ 241 Violence and Money ___________________________________________ 244 Revisiting the Rhetoric ______________________________________________ 246 What Next?