ARCHIVED Product No. 2007-R0813-032 West Texas High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area Drug Market Analysis April 2007 U.S. Department of Justice Preface reporting, information obtained through interviews This assessment provides a strategic overview with law enforcement and public health officials, of the illicit drug situation in the West Texas High and available statistical data. The report is designed Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA), high- to provide policymakers, resource planners, and lighting significant trends and law enforcement law enforcement officials with a focused discus- concerns related to the trafficking and abuse of sion of key drug issues and developments facing illicit drugs. The report was prepared through the West Texas HIDTA. detailed analysis of recent law enforcement 25 ¨¦§ NEW MEXICO EL PASO Midland "o EL PASO INTL Odessa )"D El Paso El Paso UV54 10 HUDSPETH ¦§¨20 TEXAS ¦§¨ CULBERSON Pecos )"D Sierra Fabens Blanca REEVES UV17 10 Fort ¦§¨ Stockton Fort ¦§¨10 CROCKETT Davis JEFF DAVIS PECOS ¤£90 UV17 Alpine TERRELL PRESIDIO ¤£90 ¤£67 BREWSTER ¤£90 Del D Rio OK )" AZ Presidio Big Bend !( NM National Park Ciudad Acuna~ TX Major City "o International Airport By Population )"D Port of Entry 250,000 + Interstate MEXICO 100,000 - 249,999 U.S. Highway less than 100,000 National Park Area of West Texas HIDTA !( Mexican City HIDTA County Figure 1. West Texas High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area. This assessment is an outgrowth of a partnership between the NDIC and HIDTA Program for preparation of annual assessments depicting drug trafficking trends and developments in HIDTA Program areas. The report has been vetted with the HIDTA, is limited in scope to HIDTA jurisdictional boundaries, and draws upon a wide variety of sources within those boundaries. This document may contain dated information. It has been made available to provide access to historical materials. ARCHIVED West Texas High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area Drug Market Analysis Strategic Drug Threat Drug Trafficking Organizations, Developments Criminal Groups, and Gangs • Several Mexican drug trafficking organiza- Drug trafficking organizations are complex tions (DTOs) are struggling for control over the organizations with highly defined command- El Paso/Juárez plaza;1 however, a controlling and-control structures that produce, transport, organization has not yet been established. They and/or distribute large quantities of one or more illicit drugs. use the region as a national-level distribution center and transshipment point for illicit drugs Criminal groups operating in the United States destined for major markets throughout the are numerous and range from small to moderately United States and as a staging and transit area sized, loosely knit groups that distribute one or more drugs at the retail and midlevels. for illicit drug proceeds smuggled to Mexico from these markets. Gangs are defined by the National Alliance of Gang Investigators’ Associations as groups or • Violent crime associated with the struggle associations of three or more persons with a among Mexican DTOs for control of the El common identifying sign, symbol, or name, the Paso/Juárez plaza has spread to the U.S. side members of which individually or collectively of the border, endangering law enforcement engage in criminal activity that creates an personnel and citizens in the West Texas atmosphere of fear and intimidation. HIDTA region. Chicago, Dallas/Fort Worth, Denver, Houston, • The potential for La Entrada al Pacifico, a pro- Miami, New York, and San Francisco. The ongoing posed trade route expected to be completed in violent struggle among Mexican DTOs for control 2010, to become a significant smuggling corri- of drug smuggling through the area substantiates its dor for illicit drugs and precursor chemicals strategic importance to Mexican traffickers. More- originating in or transiting Mexico remains a over, the West Texas HIDTA region’s location along concern of U.S. and Mexican law enforcement the U.S.–Mexico border poses an array of other officials; however, the infrastructure of this national security and law enforcement issues for the trade route has not yet been developed to the HIDTA region, including alien smuggling, weapons extent that would support the volume of cargo transportation, and terrorist entry into the United shipments and truck traffic necessary for traf- States through and between ports of entry (POEs). fickers to conduct large-scale smuggling opera- tions. (See Figure 2 on page 6.) Most drugs smuggled into and through the region pass through the El Paso/Juárez plaza, a • Increasingly, illicit drugs transported through major drug smuggling corridor extending from the West Texas HIDTA by Mexican DTOs are the “boot heel” of New Mexico to the eastern destined for markets in the eastern United boundary of Big Bend National Park. Mexican States, primarily Atlanta. DTOs use El Paso, the most populous metropoli- tan area in West Texas, as a principal staging area, HIDTA Overview transshipment point, and distribution center for The West Texas HIDTA region, which encom- illicit drugs destined for drug markets throughout passes 10 counties in West Texas that lie along a the nation. El Paso is located on Interstate 10, a 520-mile section of the U.S.–Mexico border, is used major drug trafficking route that links the HIDTA by Mexican DTOs as a principal smuggling corridor region to many national-level drug markets using and staging area for drug transportation to markets I-20 and I-25. throughout the United States, including Atlanta, 1. A plaza is a geographic area in which drug smuggling is controlled by a drug trafficking organization (DTO). 2 This document may contain dated information. It has been made available to provide access to historical materials. ARCHIVED National Drug Intelligence Center Table 1. Drug Seizures in the West Texas HIDTA in Kilograms, 2004–2006 Drug Year Marijuana Cocaine Methamphetamine Heroin 2004 224,937 4,644 78 48 2005 169,402 1,892 105 20 2006 172,028 2,860 150 78 Source: West Texas High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area. Mexican DTOs exploit the robust, legitimate Drug Overview cross-border economic activity and social interac- The smuggling and transshipment of large tion between El Paso and its sister city, Ciudad quantities of marijuana and powder cocaine Juárez, Mexico, and, on a smaller scale, between remain the principal drug problem in the West Presidio and Ciudad Ojinaga, Mexico, to conduct Texas HIDTA region; however, the amount seized their smuggling activities. The thriving maquila- decreased from 2004 to 2006. This decrease could 2 dora industry is a major contributor to increased be attributed to three factors: an increase in law cross-border pedestrian, passenger vehicle, and enforcement presence in the HIDTA region, commercial truck traffic—more than 200,000 which may have displaced smuggling activities to U.S. and Mexican citizens traverse the border other areas of the Southwest Border, where law daily between these sister cities—creating ideal enforcement activity is lower; the struggle for conditions for smuggling illicit drugs into the control of the El Paso/Juárez plaza, which could United States and returning drug proceeds to have forced DTOs to shift smuggling routes to Mexico. Moreover, DTOs frequently arrange their less volatile areas of the border; or changes in smuggling activities to coincide with periods of smuggling methods that may have enabled DTOs high traffic volume, reducing the likelihood that to better conceal smuggling activities from law their vehicles will be inspected. Mexican DTOs enforcement. Cocaine and marijuana smuggled also use the sparsely populated arid desert and through the HIDTA region are distributed in drug semiarid mountains and canyons of the West markets throughout the country, and the quantity Texas HIDTA region as well as the numerous of these drugs smuggled from the area to market low-level water crossings along the Rio Grande areas in the eastern United States is increasing, River to conceal their smuggling activities. Big particularly in Atlanta.3 Bend National Park, which encompasses more than 800,000 acres along the U.S.–Mexico border Heroin, methamphetamine, other dangerous in West Texas, is exploited by these traffickers, drugs (ODDs), diverted pharmaceuticals, and pre- who take advantage of the remote areas and lim- cursor chemicals are also smuggled into and ited law enforcement presence in the park to transshipped from the West Texas HIDTA region; smuggle drugs into the HIDTA region. however, the quantities are well below those seized in other areas along the Southwest Border. Methamphetamine smuggling and transshipment, in particular, are increasing but have not risen to 2. Maquiladoras are factories that obtain duty-free materials and components from foreign suppliers, including U.S. suppliers, and use them to manufacture finished products, such as textiles, in Mexico and return the products to the foreign suppliers. 3. Atlanta, which has recently emerged as a national distribution center for cocaine, marijuana, and methamphetamine, is a distribution hub for illicit drugs destined primarily for the eastern and central United States. 3 This document may contain dated information. It has been made available to provide access to historical materials. ARCHIVED West Texas High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area Drug Market Analysis levels found in Arizona, California, and South to much more efficient organizations composed Texas. A large portion of methamphetamine of decentralized networks of interdependent, task- seized in West Texas is transported from Arizona, oriented cells. For example, one cell may be respon- California, and New Mexico through the HIDTA sible for transporting drug shipments across the region by Mexican DTOs rather than across the U.S.–Mexico border, another for transporting drugs U.S.–Mexico border in West Texas. Furthermore, to U.S. markets, and another for laundering drug drug production in the West Texas HIDTA region funds. The variety of relationships that these indi- is limited because of the ready supply of drugs vidual cells can have with one another as well as smuggled from Mexico.