into Mexican Socio-Political Culture
BACKGROUND
The United Mexican States (EUM) consists of 31 states and a federal district. The nation encompasses 756,000 square miles and has a population of nearly 100,000,000. The capital, Mexico City, lays claim to being the largest city in the world. Seventy percent of the citizenry live in urban areas. Though blessed with abundant natural resources, a bountiful agricultural production capability and more billionaires than any nation in the world outside the United States, nearly half of the citizens live in poverty, with fully one-fourth living in extreme poverty. Though strides have been made in the past decade, Mexican physical infrastructure and medical facilities can both still be classified as underdeveloped.
For the past 70 years, the country has been ruled by a quasi-elected President who serves one, six-year term, and a two house legislative body. The upper house, the Senate, consists of 64 individuals (2 from each state and the federal district) elected to one, six-year term. The lower house, the Chamber of Deputies, consists of 500 individuals elected to one, three-year term. Though legally permitted to initiate revenue measures and pass the budget, the legislative body has generally not done so and has evolved to a point today where it is has relatively little political clout. The 31 states also have very little political power.
Though the Constitution of 1917 divided power between the executive, legislative and judicial branches, in practice the country is perhaps more accurately classified as an autocratic party-state system. For the past 70 years, all major political officials have come from one political party, the Institutional Revolutionary Party or PRI. Only in the past few years has the PRI experienced any challenge of consequence, most particularly being the 2000 Presidential victory of PRI-opposition leader Vicente Fox.(1) Despite several euphoric eulogies from the press subsequent to that election, the PRI is alive and well, and will most surely mount a comeback, as evidenced by its recent victory in the Tabasco gubernatorial elections (AFP, 10/18/00)
The key "player" in the de-facto Mexican political scene is the president. Mexican presidents have successfully strengthened their office over the course of the last 70 years and now enjoy tremendous power. There are few legitimate internal checks and balances to Mexican presidential power at present. Among other functions, they select their successors to the Office of President, approve legislative and state gubernatorial candidates (de-facto appointments), select the attorney general, select high-ranking military officials, select supreme court justices, select the head of the PRI Central Executive Committee (the de-facto ruling body of Mexico), and regularly by-pass the legislature and issue executive decrees or orders ("reglamentos") that have the effect of law.
As noted above, the Mexican political system has evolved into a benevolent autocratic model; interestingly a form of government that appeared, at least in 1887, to be rather attractive to future United States President Woodrow Wilson, as outlined in his famous essay, "The Study of Administration," (Wilson, 1887).
There is nothing particularly sacrosanct regarding representative, checks and balances democracy. Western civilization has moved in this direction, but the benevolent autocratic model may be the next phase in the evolution of political sovereignty. As Amin (1997) would argue, Mexico, as well as any other nation, should be allowed to "negotiate the terms of its interdependence" with the rest of the world. Echoing much the same sentiment, Samuelson (1999) has argued that we in America cannot "refashion the rest of the world in our image," and that it is the height of arrogance to suggest otherwise. By the same token, it must be noted that the nature of the autocratic party-state governmental arrangement in Mexico and the socio-economic culture in which it operates, taken in toto, lends itself to systematic corruption and infiltration by organized crime interests. It is this writer's perspective that the contemporary Mexican socio-economic political fabric suffers not just from an infiltration, but from a saturation of organized crime interests.
INTRODUCTION TO THE DRUG CARTELS AND THE DRUG WARS
Endless and eternal is their name. The drug wars in the Americas continue, with nothing even resembling a denouement on the horizon. After experiencing some success in its fight against the Medellin and Cali cartels of Colombia, American law enforcement and military officials began to focus their efforts on the Mexican drug cartels in the mid-1990s. The bells and whistles were brought out, Congressional Committees examined the issues, and numerous public relations statements were released by the Clinton Administration. Consider the following statement made in 1997 by Thomas Constantine, then Director of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA):
"These sophisticated drug syndicate groups from Mexico have eclipsed organized crime groups from Colombia as the premier law enforcement threat
facing the United States." (Constantine, 1997)
The efforts proved to be far too little and too late. Despite American law enforcement undertakings through the mid-1990s, the Mexican cartels managed to consolidate their power bases, gained some control over the media, co-opted government officials at every level on a wholesale basis, and even killed a number of local and national government leaders.
Governments have notoriously short attention spans. Despite the in-roads made by the Mexican cartels and the 1997 decision by the Clinton Administration to focus on them, American law enforcement attention has now (late 2000) been diverted to Colombia and to what the Clinton Administration deems a more pressing problem. Two left-wing terrorist groups, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the National Liberation Army (ELN), have picked up the drug trade gavel dropped by the Colombian cartels, and are now running the show. With perhaps as much as a $600 million a year income, these two narco-terrorist groups, some 20,000 strong, pose a legitimate external threat to the sovereignty of Colombia. These groups have accumulated more than $5.3 billion in the past eight years, primarily through the drug trade ($2.3 billion), but also via kidnaping ($1.8 billion) and extortion ($1.2 billion) (Criminal Organizations, May 1999). They are better armed than the Colombian military, and appear ready to take on the government in full-pitch battles (Hammer and Isikoff, 8/9/99). They may in fact be adhering to the tactical terrorist philosophies of Frantz Fanon (1982) and Carlos Marighella (1985), a philosophy that proved successful in the overthrow of Cuba some 40 years ago. In response, the Colombian government has launched "Plan Colombia," a $7.5 billion effort to take out the drug traffickers and restore order to this beleaguered nation. The matter has become more convoluted due to the recent emergence of a powerful right-wing entity, the Self-Defense Force. This group formed as a response to the Colombian government's inability to successfully deal with the left-wing entities. Run by Carlos Castano, this vigilante group has turned to taxing cocaine and heroin producers, shippers and distributors to generate the revenue necessary to finance its military operations. Some experts suggest the Self Defense Force now ironically generates more revenue from the drug business than does FARC and ELN combined (Frontline, 4/20/00). It will be most difficult to wean the Self Defense Force from this new-found wealth, and they paradoxically loom on the horizon as a threat to the sovereign government of Colombia from the political right.
American aid has poured into that beleaguered nation to the tune of $250 million this year, ranking it third behind Egypt and Israel. There are currently more than 200 U.S. military personnel and 100 federal law enforcement agents stationed in Colombia. The U.S. National Drug Control Policy Director Barry McCaffrey visited Colombia during the summer of 2000, and committed to additional $500 million per year aid package, bringing the total U.S. government support of "Plan Colombia" to $1.3 billion. The end result of this new drug war is that the Mexican drug problem has now been placed on the proverbial back burner. President Fox has continued to seek American cooperation/assistance in the drug wars, but sensing its lowered priority in the Ameican political agenda, he has turned his attention southward and called for a unified Latin American effort to deal with the trafficking. While currently little more than a call for action, he seems determined to cobble together some type of unified Meso-American anti-drug initiative. Interestingly, he seems to be working most closely with Colombian President Pastrana in developing a solid political base for the notion (Associated Press, 10/9/00).
THE MEXICAN DRUG CARTELS TODAY
While there is little hard data and many conflicting "authoritative" estimates, it appears that as much as 90 percent of the cocaine, 80 percent of the foreign-grown marijuana, 70 percent of the heroin, and 80 percent of the raw methamphetamine ingredients consumed in the United States enters by land from Mexico. For a period of time, the Colombians supplied the bulk of the drugs to the Mexicans, who then trans-shipped those products primarily into the United States. The Mexicans began by-passing the Colombians and going directly to Bolivian and Peruvian suppliers during the summer of 1997. Many have continued to move in that fashion, but the Colombians have now returned as the Mexican cartel's primary supplier of heroin and cocaine.
There are probably a dozen Mexican syndicates that are involved in the drug trade. The six primary Mexican syndicates with international capabilities currently operating are as follows(2):
1. The Gulf (or Matamoros) Cartel - This cartel was run by Juan Garcia-Abrego, but he was captured in January of 1996 and convicted in Texas in October of that year.(3) This was the strongest of the border-based cartels until his arrest. Oscar Malherve emerged as the next leader of this cartel, and due to his Juarez Cartel connections, seemed poised to move the Gulf Cartel back into a position of prominence, but he was arrested in 1997 and remains behind bars as of this writing. It is thought that the Gulf cartel is now run by Oziel Cardenas Guillen. The Gulf Cartel is based in south Texas (Brownsville and Laredo) and northeastern Mexico (Tamaulipas) and controls the gulf region, as its name implies. Abrego and company had been transshipping as much as 1/3 of all the cocaine used in the United States, but that number has dropped a bit of late. They have a brand name on their product - "Rolex," suggesting a high grade of cocaine. Money came in so fast and furious that the Gulf Cartel leadership literally did not know what to do with it. Foolishly, Abrego placed $1.3 billion into an American bank checking account, which only served to bring him to the immediate attention of American law enforcement officials.(4) He was allegedly worth around $15 billion at the time of his arrest. He owned hotels, real estate and an air taxi service in Texas, and even more extensive holdings in Mexico including newspapers, hotels, construction firms, lumber companies, moving businesses, ranches, real estate (Reuters, 9/29/96). He was tied to Raul Salinas, the brother of former Mexican President Carlos Salinas (president from 1988-1994) (Reuters, 1996). As of this writing, Cardenas is making significant strides in re-establishing this cartel as a major player once again.
2. The Juarez Cartel - This cartel was run by a former Mexican federal police commander, Rafael Aguilar, and Amado Carrillo Fuentes. Fuentes died in June of 1997 while undergoing plastic surgery. Leadership of this cartel is currently being contested, but Adado' brother Vicente seems now to have gained control. This syndicate has historically controlled the middle area of the Mexican/United States border. There were two factions to this group, but they came together under Fuentes, who by 1997 was grossing as much as $200 million a week. Under Fuentes, the Juarez Cartel rose to dominance in Mexico. They were smuggling four times as much cocaine as the other cartels combined (Larmer 3/10/97). When Fuentes passed away, the cartel probably had $25 billion in assets hidden away. Fuentes was also expanding into methamphetamines and money laundering ventures at the time of his death. The late September 1999 arrest by U.S. officials of 93 persons associated with this cartel, as well as the seizure of $25 million in cash and assets and the loss of 12.5 tons of cocaine and 2.1 tons of marijuana will surely set this cartel back.
3. The Tijuana Cartel - This cartel is run by the four Felix-Arellano brothers, wanted for the brutal 1993 murder of Catholic Cardinal Juan Jesus Ocampo (Reuters, 5/25/93). In early 1998, they combined forces with the strong central Mexican group, the Sonora Cartel run by the Caro Quintero family of Guadalajara, and formed a new organization they call, "The Federation" (AFP, 2/16/98). The Sonora Cartel was founded by Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo, who although imprisoned, appears to still be a major player in the new formed Federation, in part because he is the uncle of the Felix-Arellano brothers. Gallardo has long been known for advocating cooperation between the cartels. This group now has the potential to be the most powerful of the Mexican cartels.
4. The Herrera family - In some ways, this is not really a cartel per se, but an old time Mexican mafia family akin to the Camorra of Naples or the Black mobs of the eastern United States. They have many operations in Mexico itself. Herrera family representatives have also operated in New York, Boston, Louisville, Philadelphia, Dallas and Oklahoma City, with Chicago serving as their primary American hub. One estimate places over 1,000 Herrera family cocaine and heroin dealers in the United States (AFP, 12/6/97). This organization is based in the city of Durango in the state of Durango, and is really a confederation of roughly six families. They are enmeshed in the local socio-economic, political scene, and the family basically controls the state. As Abadinsky (2000:257) has pointed out, "the Herrera's did not buy off the power structure in Durango - they are the power structure." Members of this syndicate are generally all tied by blood and/or marriage, and as a result, the group has been almost impossible to infiltrate. The family head gives to the poor, plays the role of loving community godfather at many funerals and weddings, builds water and sewer systems, puts in street lights, builds hospitals. They supply America with so-called "Mexican mud" (brown heroin), and have done so since at least the mid-1940s. Opium is grown in the state of Durango, which explains to a large degree why they got into and stayed in that business. For a while, the Herrera's were running Colombian cocaine into the United States for the Medellin and then the Cali Cartels. They have now apparently opted out of the current cocaine battles and seem to want to just deal in their "Mexican mud" trade and be left alone. To a great degree, the "Mexican mud" market is a different market than the "China white" market. The other syndicates generally do not contend with the Herrera clan. The Herrera's are just too well enmeshed in Durango, the poppies are grown there, and the family is too well connected. The family has in essence established a vertical monopoly in the areas of production and distribution.
5. The Hank family - A second family syndicate, the Hank Family, has been emerging of late as a powerful player in the drug trade. A recent U.S. government report stated that the Hank family has been so closely linked to drug trafficking that they are now seen as a serious threat to the United States (AFP, 6/2/99). This group is headed by Carlos Hank Gonzalez who is best known for his expansive and profitable transportation, construction, and financial empires in Mexico. He has also been said to hold significant influential power within the PRI. Carlos Hank Gonzalez and his two eldest sons, Carlos Hank Rhon and Jorge Hank Rhon, have been the target of a American investigation since 1997. The Hank Corporation, known as "Guapo Hank", has purchased or maintained control over several American banks, investment firms, transportation companies and real estate properties, and is involved in the gambling industry. Hank Gonzalez is a former mayor of Mexico City and held two separate cabinet posts under former President Carlos Salinas. It is alleged that his eldest son, Carlos Hank Rhon, launders drug money and had been closely associated with Amado Carillo Fuentes - the late head of the Juarez Cartel (AFP, 6/2/99). Carlos Hank Rhon has also been associated with Raul Salinas, the former president's brother, who was himself linked to drug trafficking and was ultimately convicted of the murder of one of his brother's political rivals. Jorge Hank Rhon, the younger of the two sons, lives in the northern border town of Tijuana and is a close associate of the Felix-Arellano brothers, the leaders of The Federation. Jorge is less discrete in his criminality than either his older brother or his father and has earned the reputation of being "ruthless, dangerous, and prone to violence against his enemies" (AFP, 6/2/99). Mexican Foreign Minister Rosario Green has rejected the accusations laid against the Hank family and has called such allegations nothing more than pure defamation laid against Mexico's top officials and business men. A far more likely scenario is that the Hank family may well have aligned themselves with The Federation, bringing a significant amount of resources and connections to an already extremely powerful entity.
6. The Mexican Military - While not recognized for many years in the academic community, the Mexican military has been heavily involved in the marijuana trade for decades. Recent works have begun to surface which speak to this issues (Morris, 1991; Nadelmann, 1993), though many are in Spanish. A recent article by O'Day (2000) is one of the first comprehensive pieces written in English that addresses this topic. As O'Day points out, the drug of choice of the Mexican military is now and has been for years, marijuana. Seeing an opportunity to carve out a literal monopoly, the Mexican military got into the marijuana transport business as the American demand for marijuana increased in the 1970s. Bulky and possessing a penetrating pungent odor that is virtually impossible to mask, the movement of marijuana presents very different transport dynamics than does either heroin or cocaine. The Mexican military, however, has the military force to move throughout the country with impunity thus rendering moot the need to mask the odor. It also has access to large vehicles that can easily move large quantities of the bulky weed. The military has used these unique abilities to their advantage, and have largely stayed out of the cocaine and heroin business, though they do provide security for clandestine airstrips operated by cocaine and heroin traffickers. Over the past 30 years, the Mexican military has emerged as a major cartel in its own right, and currently has a virtual monopoly in the marijuana transportation business. While there is little hard data, U.S. law enforcement officers stationed on the U.S.-Mexican border have long noted, "where the Mexican army goes, dope flows." Marijuana is grown year-round in Mexico and the army has literally tons of harvested marijuana at its disposal, and even oversees the production and crop security end of the process in some regions.
It appears that each Mexican military regiment operates somewhat independently and there is a de-centralized flavor to the operations, though high-ranking Mexican military generals are clearly involved (Dillon, 1998). This would suggest at least some semblance of an organizational hierarchy, where orders move down the chain of command, and money moves up. One of the results of Operation Casablanca, a U.S. government undercover operation undertaken in the late 1990s, was the acquisition of several tapes, one of which featured then Mexican Secretary of Defense Enrique Cervantes seeking ways to launder $150 billion. Many have suggested, on the basis of vast circumstantial evidence though there is still no hard evidence, that this flow of "cannabis cash" reaches up to the office of the Mexican president. What is clear is that the Mexican military are heavily involved in the transportation of marijuana and that they will use force to protect their business. In a chilling video, aired for the first time on American national television by PBS on October 10, 2000, a squad of elite Mexican national police officers who came upon a shipment of marijuana, are gunned down by a squad of Mexican army personnel. The video further revealed that the army regiment was deployed in a strategic military context to protect the clandestine airstrip (Frontline, 10/10/00).
In the past few years, the Mexican military has become more and more aggressive in the border regions, shaking down ethnic Mexicans with impunity, regardless of citizenship and regardless of which side of the border they were on. Numerous accounts are filtering in of camouflaged Mexican military units crossing the "Rio Grande" and carrying out their business on the American side of the border (see AFP, 11/03/00). In January of 2000 for example, there was a running fire fight near El Paso, Texas between several U.S. law enforcement officers and several Mexican military personnel who had driven across the border in broad daylight. Outgunned by the military personnel, the U.S. officers had to retreat. By the time they returned with more firepower, the Mexican military personnel had finished their business and driven back across the border.
O'Day (2000) provides numerous case studies of Mexican military operating north of the border. "What is surprising," he writes, "is the open and singularly aggressive demeanor of the Mexican soldiers [who are] on American soil." In conjunction with the American law enforcement community, they are turning both sides of the border region into a de-facto military zone, with all the accompanying infringements and abuses spawned by such a demarcation. Continued movement in this direction will threaten the very foundation of Mexican democracy.
THE RISE OF THE MEXICAN DRUG CARTELS
The Mexican cartels originated in response to a demand for smuggling both people and contraband into the United States in the 1920s and 1930s. The cartels began operating as middlemen smugglers for more powerful groups. With smuggling networks in place, the 1970s saw the cartels branch out on their own and begin to smuggle the high demand drug, marijuana, into the United States. In the 1980s the Colombian drug cartels rose to power, and they needed a way to bring cocaine into the American market. The Caribbean routes were used, but so were routes through Mexico. In the beginning, the Colombians would pay the Mexican groups as much as $1,000/kilo to smuggle cocaine into the United States. The Colombians would then pick up the drugs and resume distribution and sales efforts. This arrangement brought the Mexican cartels wealth, but little power or control of the drug trafficking market.
This arrangement did not last long, and a number of meetings were held between Mexican and Colombian cartel leaders in the early 1980s, shortly after the connection was made. These meetings were arranged by the Honduran drug trafficker, Matta Ballesteros. Ballesteros worked with both the Colombian Medellin Cartel and Mexican smugglers. Ballesteros (currently serving a life sentence in United States for drug trafficking), introduced a number of Mexican cartel leaders to one of the founders of the Medellin Cartel, Rodriguez Gacha (killed by police in 1989). Gacha, nicknamed "the Mexican," was very impressed with the efficient Mexican smuggling operations and felt comfortable doing business with them. His deal making shifted more and more of the cocaine trade routes from the Caribbean to Mexico.
In the early 1990s, United States anti-drug operations kicked in and began to focus on the Colombian-Caribbean drug smuggling connections. The Colombians were forced to smuggle increasing amounts of cocaine into the United States through Mexico. The pressure on the Colombian cartels was mounting. The Mexican and Colombian cartels began another series of meetings. At one such meeting, in January of 1992, Cali Cartel leaders Miguel and Gilberto Rodriguez-Orejula decided that Juarez Cartel leader Carrillo Fuentes would arrange to fly planes loaded with cocaine directly from Colombia to Mexico. Carrillo Fuentes would eventually earn the nickname, "Lord of the Skies" for his diabolically brilliant ability to deliver literally tons of cocaine. Fuentes became a master at smuggling drugs not only with planes, but also with boats and trucks and people.
Smuggling through the Mexican cartels continued to grow throughout the early 1990s. Instead of merely dumping the cocaine in warehouses just across the border, the Mexican cartels became so powerful that they could guarantee delivery anywhere inside the United States. New deals were in the making between the Colombian and Mexican cartels.
In the early 1990s, the head of the Gulf Cartel (the most powerful Mexican cartel at the time) Garcia-Abrego, secured a major deal with the Colombian cartels that increased the Gulf Cartel's power even more. Instead of paying with cash, the Colombians would forfeit half of their cocaine shipments to Garcia-Abrego who then took the risk of selling, but also took the profits (Lupsha, 1995:90). By 1994 this became the standard business practice of all Mexican cartels (O'Brien and Greenburg, 1996; Wren, 1996). This deal was a major turning point in the fortunes of the Mexican cartels. With this new business arrangement, the power and wealth of the Mexican drug cartels exploded. The Mexican cartels set up their own cocaine distribution networks in cities such as Houston, Dallas, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Denver. The Colombians agreed to all of this as long as Mexican cartels would leave the Colombian markets in Miami, and the bulk of the east coast to the Colombians.
In the summer of 1995, the Colombian cartels fell under a renewed attack and received even more pressure from the Colombian National Police, who were aided by the American CIA and DEA. The police tracked down and arrested seven Cali Cartel leaders, including the Rodriquez-Orejula brothers. They tried to run their organization from prison, but failed. William Rodriguez, son of Miguel, was chosen to run the Cartel. He was so offensive that those with whom he was making deals wanted to kill him. He was forced into hiding and the Cali Cartel split up into small, separate businesses. While the Colombian cartels were dividing, the Mexican cartels were consolidating.
The Juarez Cartel, run by the then extremely powerful Carrillo Fuentes, became even stronger after Gulf Cartel leader, Garcia-Abrego, was arrested in January of 1996. Garcia-Abrego's replacement, Oscar Malherve, allied himself with Fuentes, making Carrillo Fuentes Mexico's drug kingpin.
Carrillo Fuentes continued to work on gaining even more power. Most of the coca crop is grown in Peru and Bolivia and then taken to Colombia to be turned into the final product, cocaine. Fuentes arranged for eight multi-ton shipments to be flown from Bolivia straight to Mexico. Fuentes intended to cut Colombia completely out of the picture. The Cali Cartel, although down, still had an intelligence operation in tact. They quietly notified the Bolivian authorities of the shipments, leading to the seizure of 4.1 tons of cocaine by Bolivian authorities on September 26, 1995.
This blow could have brought the cartels into an all out war, and it would have, if not for the wisdom of Carrillo Fuentes. Fuentes realized that a war among the cartels would only hurt and weaken them. He also knew that a war would give the scattered remnants of the Cali empire something to rally around, which could possibly re-unite the Cali Cartel fragments and return the Colombians to the powerful drug trafficking dynasty they once were. Fuentes called for a series of new meetings in neutral sites. In these meetings, Fuentes (actually represented by Gulf Cartel leader Oscar Malherve) told the Colombians that he would continue to deal directly with Peru and Bolivia. He would bypass Colombia because of the unstructured and unstable cartels in Colombia at the time. He proposed a new plan for business with Colombia. The plan basically allowed the Colombians to take their cocaine as far as Mexico, where they would be paid in cash for it. This meant that the Mexican cartels now had almost complete control of the cocaine trade in the United States, the largest cocaine market in the world. The Colombian profits would take a dive, but they would be alleviated of some of the risks involved in the business.
By 1997, many new, small organizations were jumping into the cocaine market in Colombia. Instead of cooperating, they competed with each other which left the market and the power structure quite fragmented. The Mexican cartels took advantage of this arrangement and soon took control of the entire market. By 1997, it appeared that Colombia's drug cartels were going to die out. General Rosso Jose Serrano, director of the Colombian National Police, said in 1997, that Carrillo Fuentes's Mexican organization was overpowering the Colombian drug organizations. It was "... by far the strongest cocaine-trafficking group. He is the one who buys and distributes everything" (Farah and Moore, 1997).
Carrillo Fuentes was on top of the world. He had left the Colombians in the dust. He was making an estimated $200 million a week and was smuggling four times as much cocaine into the United States as all the other Mexican cartels combined. As would later be revealed, Carrillo Fuentes even had Mexico's law enforcement drug czar, Gutierrez Rebollo, in his pocket. He developed a grand master plan and began to put it into effect:
1. Cut Colombia out of the picture with respect to the cocaine trade by dealing directly with Peruvian and Bolivian suppliers.
2. Move into the methamphetamine market.
3. Move into the money laundering trade.(5)
4. Maintain tight contacts with Mexican government officials.(6)
The plan was never able to be fully realized, for on July 4, 1997, Carrillo Fuentes died while undergoing plastic surgery. He had undergone plastic surgery in the past, and was attempting to further alter his appearance to conceal his identity from American government authorities. There was some thought at the time that he may have been purposefully killed on the operating table, but it now appears that he simply died due to surgical complications. As a result of his death, the Juarez empire and its immense cocaine market was up for grabs, and a war broke out to seize control. Mexico experienced 40 to 50 gangland slayings in the following six months (Reuters, 2/13/98).
The small Colombian organizations used that time to re-assert themselves. A number of groups by-passed Mexico, and set up Puerto Rico as the transshipment site of choice. The Puerto Rican syndicates took only 25 to 40 percent of the cut, and packages sent to the United States from Puerto Rico (an American possession) were not inspected as closely as those coming in from other countries. Some success was achieved, but the Puerto Rican connection suffered a major blow however, in August of 1999 when 58 persons, including a number of American Airline personnel, local Puerto Rican law enforcement officials, a federal employee, and the son of Puerto Rico's chief law enforcement official were arrested on drug trafficking charges (AFP, 8/26/99).
At this writing, the Colombians have been unable to consolidate themselves, and the "cartels" are little more than small, drug-running gangs. There are thought to be about 300 such entities at present, and they really have no other option but to run their cocaine and heroin through Mexico. The fact that the American cocaine market is experiencing a sharp decline is certainly complicating matters.(7) A number of the Colombian drug gangs have now abandoned the American market, and have turned their attention to what is fast becoming a literal drug supermarket - Europe and Central Asia.
Meanwhile, the Mexican cartels, after a period of upheaval subsequent to Fuentes' death, seem to have stabilized. At present, it appears that the cocaine trade has dichotomized, with power being shared by Oscar Malherve and the Gulf Cartel in the east, and the Federation in the west. Again, the September 1999 arrests by U.S. officials of 93 Juarez cartel associates mentioned previously, along with the loss of drug supplies and millions in currency will surely serve to weaken the Juarez cartel and further strengthen the Gulf Cartel and The Federation.
The shrinking cocaine market in America has forced the cartels to aggressively (and successfully) exploit other underworld markets, as will be discussed. They have historically demonstrated a remarkable ability to adapt, just as the American syndicates demonstrated in the post-Prohibition era, and unfortunately appear to have a bright future. Before examining those new markets, however, there is a need to review the current state of the Mexican political scene so as to better understand the context in which the Mexican drug cartels now find themselves.
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