beercan
Senior Nomad
Posts: 670
Registered: 4-3-2005
Location: North of da Bear
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Mood: happy to be in Baja
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More on the War
The Long Arm of the Lawless
February 25, 2009 | 1906 GMT
Global Security and Intelligence Report
By Fred Burton and Scott Stewart
Related Special Topic Page
* Tracking Mexico’s Drug Cartels
Last week we discussed the impact that crime, and specifically kidnapping, has been having on Mexican citizens and foreigners visiting or living in
Mexico. We pointed out that there is almost no area of Mexico immune from the crime and violence. As if on cue, on the night of Feb. 21 a group of
heavily armed men threw two grenades at a police building in Zihuatanejo, Guerrero state, wounding at least five people. Zihuatanejo is a normally
quiet beach resort just north of Acapulco; the attack has caused the town’s entire police force to go on strike. (Police strikes, or threats of
strikes, are not uncommon in Mexico.)
Mexican police have regularly been targeted by drug cartels, with police officials even having been forced to seek safety in the United States, but
such incidents have occurred most frequently in areas of high cartel activity like Veracruz state or Palomas. The Zihuatanejo incident is proof of the
pervasiveness of violence in Mexico, and demonstrates the impact that such violence quickly can have on an area generally considered safe.
Significantly, the impact of violent Mexican criminals stretches far beyond Mexico itself. In recent weeks, Mexican criminals have been involved in
killings in Argentina, Peru and Guatemala, and Mexican criminals have been arrested as far away as Italy and Spain. Their impact — and the extreme
violence they embrace — is therefore not limited to Mexico or even just to Latin America. For some years now, STRATFOR has discussed the threat that
Mexican cartel violence could spread to the United States, and we have chronicled the spread of such violence to the U.S.-Mexican border and beyond.
Traditionally, Mexican drug-trafficking organizations had focused largely on the transfer of narcotics through Mexico. Once the South American cartels
encountered serious problems bringing narcotics directly into the United States, they began to focus more on transporting the narcotics to Mexico.
From that point, the Mexican cartels transported them north and then handed them off to U.S. street gangs and other organizations, which handled much
of the narcotics distribution inside the United States. In recent years, however, these Mexican groups have grown in power and have begun to take
greater control of the entire narcotics-trafficking supply chain.
With greater control comes greater profitability as the percentages demanded by middlemen are cut out. The Mexican cartels have worked to have a
greater presence in Central and South America, and now import from South America into Mexico an increasing percentage of the products they sell. They
are also diversifying their routes and have gone global; they now even traffic their wares to Europe. At the same time, Mexican drug-trafficking
organizations also have increased their distribution operations inside the United States to expand their profits even further. As these Mexican
organizations continue to spread beyond the border areas, their profits and power will extend even further — and they will bring their culture of
violence to new areas.
Burned in Phoenix
The spillover of violence from Mexico began some time ago in border towns like Laredo and El Paso in Texas, where merchants and wealthy families face
extortion and kidnapping threats from Mexican gangs, and where drug dealers who refuse to pay “taxes” to Mexican cartel bosses are gunned down. But
now, the threat posed by Mexican criminals is beginning to spread north from the U.S.-Mexican border. One location that has felt this expanding threat
most acutely is Phoenix, some 185 miles north of the border. Some sensational cases have highlighted the increased threat in Phoenix, such as a June
2008 armed assault in which a group of heavily armed cartel gunmen dressed like a Phoenix Police Department tactical team fired more than 100 rounds
into a residence during the targeted killing of a Jamaican drug dealer who had double-crossed a Mexican cartel. We have also observed cartel-related
violence in places like Dallas and Austin, Texas. But Phoenix has been the hardest hit.
Narcotics smuggling and drug-related assassinations are not the only thing the Mexican criminals have brought to Phoenix. Other criminal gangs have
been heavily involved in human smuggling, arms smuggling, money laundering and other crimes. Due to the confluence of these Mexican criminal gangs,
Phoenix has now become the kidnapping-for-ransom capital of the United States. According to a Phoenix Police Department source, the department
received 368 kidnapping reports last year. As we discussed last week, kidnapping is a highly underreported crime in places such as Mexico, making it
very difficult to measure accurately. Based upon experience with kidnapping statistics in other parts of the world — specifically Latin America — it
would not be unreasonable to assume that there were at least as many unreported kidnappings in Phoenix as there are reported kidnappings.
At present, the kidnapping environment in the United States is very different from that of Mexico, Guatemala or Colombia. In those countries,
kidnapping runs rampant and has become a well-developed industry with a substantial established infrastructure. Police corruption and incompetence
ensures that kidnappers are rarely caught or successfully prosecuted.
A variety of motives can lie behind kidnappings. In the United States, crime statistics demonstrate that motives such as sexual exploitation, custody
disputes and short-term kidnapping for robbery have far surpassed the number of reported kidnappings conducted for ransom. In places like Mexico,
kidnapping for ransom is much more common.
The FBI handles kidnapping investigations in the United States. It has developed highly sophisticated teams of agents and resources to devote to
investigating this type of crime. Local police departments are also far more proficient and professional in the United States than in Mexico. Because
of the advanced capabilities of law enforcement in the United States, the overwhelming majority of criminals involved in kidnapping-for-ransom cases
reported to police — between 95 percent and 98 percent — are caught and convicted. There are also stiff federal penalties for kidnapping. Because of
this, kidnapping for ransom has become a relatively rare crime in the United States.
Most kidnapping for ransom that does happen in the United States occurs within immigrant communities. In these cases, the perpetrators and victims
belong to the same immigrant group (e.g., Chinese Triad gangs kidnapping the families of Chinese businesspeople, or Haitian criminals kidnapping
Haitian immigrants) — which is what is happening in Phoenix. The vast majority of the 368 known kidnapping victims in Phoenix are Mexican and Central
American immigrants who are being victimized by Mexican or Mexican-American criminals.
The problem in Phoenix involves two main types of kidnapping. One is the abduction of drug dealers or their children, the other is the abduction of
illegal aliens.
Drug-related kidnappings often are not strict kidnappings for ransom per se. Instead, they are intended to force the drug dealer to repay a debt to
the drug trafficking organization that ordered the kidnapping.
Nondrug-related kidnappings are very different from traditional kidnappings in Mexico or the United States, in which a high-value target is abducted
and held for a large ransom. Instead, some of the gangs operating in Phoenix are basing their business model on volume, and are willing to hold a
large number of victims for a much smaller individual pay out. Reports have emerged of kidnapping gangs in Phoenix carjacking entire vans full of
illegal immigrants away from the coyote smuggling them into the United States. The kidnappers then transport the illegal immigrants to a safe house,
where they are held captive in squalid conditions — and often tortured or sexually assaulted with a family member listening in on the phone — to
coerce the victims’ family members in the United States or Mexico to pay the ransom for their release. There are also reports of the gangs picking up
vehicles full of victims at day labor sites and then transporting them to the kidnapping safe house rather than to the purported work site.
Drug-related kidnappings are less frequent than the nondrug-related abduction of illegal immigrants, but in both types of abductions, the victims are
not likely to seek police assistance due to their immigration status or their involvement in illegal activity. This strongly suggests the kidnapping
problem greatly exceeds the number of cases reported to police.
Implications for the United States
The kidnapping gangs in Phoenix that target illegal immigrants have found their chosen crime to be lucrative and relatively risk-free. If the flow of
illegal immigrants had continued at high levels, there is very little doubt the kidnappers’ operations would have continued as they have for the past
few years. The current economic downturn, however, means the flow of illegal immigrants has begun to slow — and by some accounts has even begun to
reverse. (Reports suggest many Mexicans are returning home after being unable to find jobs in the United States.)
This reduction in the pool of targets means that we might be fast approaching a point where these groups, which have become accustomed to kidnapping
as a source of easy money — and their primary source of income — might be forced to change their method of operating to make a living. While some
might pursue other types of criminal activity, some might well decide to diversify their pool of victims. Watching for this shift in targeting is of
critical importance. Were some of these gangs to begin targeting U.S. citizens rather than just criminals or illegal immigrants, a tremendous panic
would ensue, along with demands to catch the perpetrators.
Such a shift would bring a huge amount of law enforcement pressure onto the kidnapping gangs, to include the FBI. While the FBI is fairly hard-pressed
for resources given its heavy counterterrorism, foreign counterintelligence and white-collar crime caseload, it almost certainly would be able to
reassign the resources needed to respond to such kidnappings in the face of publicity and a public outcry. Such a law enforcement effort could
neutralize these gangs fairly quickly, but probably not quickly enough to prevent any victims from being abducted or harmed.
Since criminal groups are not comprised of fools alone, at least some of these groups will realize that targeting soccer moms will bring an avalanche
of law enforcement attention upon them. Therefore, it is very likely that if kidnapping targets become harder to find in Phoenix — or if the law
enforcement environment becomes too hostile due to the growing realization of this problem — then the groups may shift geography rather than targeting
criteria. In such a scenario, professional kidnapping gangs from Phoenix might migrate to other locations with large communities of Latin American
illegal immigrants to victimize. Some of these locations could be relatively close to the Mexican border like Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, San Diego
or Los Angeles, though they could also include locations farther inland like Chicago, Atlanta, New York, or even the communities around meat and
poultry packing plants in the Midwest and mid-Atlantic states. Such a migration of ethnic criminals would not be unprecedented: Chinese Triad groups
from New York for some time have traveled elsewhere on the East Coast, like Atlanta, to engage in extortion and kidnapping against Chinese businessmen
there.
The issue of Mexican drug-traffic organizations kidnapping in the United States merits careful attention, especially since criminal gangs in other
areas of the country could start imitating the tactics of the Phoenix gangs.
Tell Stratfor What You Think
This report may be forwarded or republished on your website with attribution to www.stratfor.com
* libs, all about choice until you choose different
* B. Hussein Obama - an Empty Suit for Empty Minds.
* Annoy a liberal - Work hard and be happy!
* Arguing facts & truth to libs is like bringing a warm smile to a gun fight.
* Lets win the War on Terror
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Pescador
Ultra Nomad
Posts: 3587
Registered: 10-17-2002
Location: Baja California Sur
Member Is Offline
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I think it is good to be informed but on the other hand it sure does play havoc with your mind. Early this week we were leaving Mexico for health
issues and were making a "run for the border" which meant we were traveling long hours (only in daylight) and moving as rapidly as possible. Just
north of Catavina, we encountered a motor home and a rather dilapidated Mexican school bus on the side of the road. There were two tourists of
approximately the same age as I (grey hair) and about 5 or 6 locals which were obviously from the school bus. The older woman from the motorhome was
waving us down rather frantically and when it looked like I might pass them up due to my unease with the situation, she became almost frantic and I
thought she might throw herself under my truck and camper pulling a cargo trailer. I felt really uneasy because I did not understand the situation
and refused to pull over into the parking area and instead rolled down my window to get the information but kept a steady eye on the people from the
school bus and anybody else that might make an appearance. I told my wife to hang on and if anybody made any kind of false move or anybody appeared
with any kind of firearm, I was out of there as fast as the Cummins Diesel would move.
As it turned out, the motorhome and the school bus came together over the center line and both had broken mirrors. When I suggested that they just
settle the issue and give the school bus driver a couple of bucks and go on their way, they had their second time of considering me nutty. Next, the
motorhome people wanted me to drive 30 Kilometers up a bad Mexican road to El Marmol to notify the other group in their party that they had a problem.
Because I was in a real hurry, I did not have the time to drive into El Marmol but did find the motorhome in question when we got closer to El
Rosario ( who thought that the other motorhome had passed them while they went into El Marmol)
While it goes completely against my grain to not go out of my way to provide roadside assistance to anybody in need, I must admit that I was more
cautious than normal and scrutinized the whole situation with a higher degree of paranoia than normal.
It is with a degree of sadness that I report this happening and I certainly yearn for the "good ol' days when we all went out of our way to help
everyone".
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805gregg
Super Nomad
Posts: 1344
Registered: 5-21-2006
Location: Ojai, Ca
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At least those of use that can remember the good ol days, can look back and still smile.
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Bajahowodd
Elite Nomad
Posts: 9274
Registered: 12-15-2008
Location: Disneyland Adjacent and anywhere in Baja
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I know how you feel. And hope the good ol days will morph into the good new days ahead.
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