Monday, August 27, 2007
The Cocaine Connection — Financing Terrorism
Shared Responsibility
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As Washington’s two main newspapers published reports linking Mexican
drug cartels to Middle Eastern terrorist cells, the capture of a Chinese national [sic] deeply involved with Mexican
drug trafficking raised further questions about the often-overlooked security risks posed by drug consumption.
The succession of news stories started in early August when The Washington Times published
detailed 2005 DEA investigations showing how Middle Eastern terrorists were funding sleeper cells in the U.S. with money linked
to Mexican drug cartels.
Apparently, Middle Eastern terrorists, often disguised as Hispanic and speaking perfect Spanish,
are smuggling pseudoephedrine from China, at times through Canada before reaching U.S. ports, and turning it over to Mexican
methamphetamine factories who use pseudoephedrine as an ingredient. Getting the drugs into Mexico was also done with the aim
of Islamist terrorists, who then received payment overseas for their work.
"Since drug traffickers and terrorists operate in a clandestine environment, both groups utilize
similar methodologies to function … all lend themselves to facilitation and are among the essential elements that may
contribute to the successful conclusion of a catastrophic event by terrorists," projects the report.
Proof that the “facilitation” mentioned in the DEA report is already well underway
is local police data taken from a single court house in Austin, Texas that states some 20 Arab individuals are changing their
names to Hispanic ones every week. With legal identities, the presumably terrorist-linked Arab individuals can camouflage
into the general population and transit between Canada, Mexico and the U.S. with relative ease.
Following up on the story, The Washington Times then interviewed Asa Hutchinson, former
head of the CIA. "Wherever you look globally, you see extremist groups benefiting from drug trafficking. You see the Taliban
benefiting from opium. We see money coming from drug trafficking in the United States making its way back to terrorist groups
overseas," Mr. Hutchinson told the paper.
The last news item, so far, appeared in editorial form in The Washington Post [on August 20]. Written by Arthur Trebach, a professor emeritus at American University
and a former drug policy aide, the piece emphasizes the huge risk that the 20 identity changes taking place in Austin, Texas
pose to both local and international security.
Drugs without borders
After reading these three news items, Shared Responsibility pulled up a story that also appeared
in early August, which analyzed the repercussions of the recent arrest of Zhenli Ye Gon, a native Chinese-turned Mexican drug
lord. Titled “The China Connection,” the piece had appeared as an editorial written by The New York Times’
Eduardo Porter on August 2nd and hadn’t attracted unusual attention. Until now.
Here is the paragraph in Mr. Porter’s piece that caught Shared Responsibility’s eye:
“Mr. Ye Gon, who was born in Shanghai, migrated to Mexico in 1990 and became a Mexican
citizen five years ago, is accused of illegally importing into Mexico tons of pseudoephedrine and other chemicals from China
and other countries to supply methamphetamine labs run by Mexican drug cartels in Mexico and American border states.”
If pseudoephedrine, an over-the-counter nasal decongestant found in many cold medicines, is being
brought into the U.S. and Mexico by both Middle Eastern terrorists and Chinese drug dealers to supply Mexican cartels, now
the principle distributors of cocaine in the Western Hemisphere, then it’s hardly a stretch to posit that cocaine will
one day play an important role in financing terrorism or illegal Chinese activities, if it’s not doing so already.
In his article, Mr. Porter also writes: “Following Mr. Ye Gon’s arrest, the head
of Colombia’s national police warned that Mexico and Colombia would have to prepare to do battle against Chinese and
Russian organized crime.” Middle Eastern terrorists should now be added to that list.
The immense danger of putting such notoriously unswerving criminal minds together with a common
goal is evident. What is not evident is if the nations of the world are actively aware of this danger. As The Washington
Times wrote in their revelatory article linking Middle Eastern terrorists with Mexican drug cartels: “Many times
smugglers don’t know what they are transporting.”
In light of this statement, it becomes even more of an imperative for countries around
the world to inform their citizens that by purchasing cocaine, meth and other drugs, they are indirectly helping finance the
contraband of people, weapons and terrorism.
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Shared Responsibility, August 22, 2007. Shared Responsibility is a Colombia-led initiative, launched by the Office of the Vice President of Colombia in 2005, for illicit-drug
producing and consuming countries to work on shared solutions to the threat that cocaine production, trafficking and abuse
poses to the world.
