Monday, March 23, 2009

U.S. and Mexican Criminals are Consolidating in the USA

By Jerry Brewer

Absorbing and incorporating a culture into a society becomes quite a dichotomy in terms when defining a melting pot of crime and violence.  This especially when radicalized elements organize, to form criminal enterprises that are explicitly engaged in racketeering and the associated death and mayhem.  Activities that are rampant far beyond the U.S.-Mexico border.

While talk of militarizing the U.S. border, as well as "fencing out" those crossing illegally, might be a noble but contrite knee-jerk reaction, it is time to get past the missed wake up calls and plainly see that the buses and trains of spontaneous demand and compliant suppliers sped past us.  Too, the irony of this shows that it is not all about illicit drugs anymore.

While recent media reports graphically focus on the U.S.-Mexican border, and politicians continue to posture on strategies in reaction to festering violent criminal maladies related to the border, the record must be set straight on the timing.

The symptoms manifested quite clearly as far back as 2005.  There was then a real, ominous and visible threat from the border with Mexico.  The danger was from organized and sophisticated drug traffickers, and paramilitary trained enforcers and assassins with sophisticated firearms and explosive munitions.

In 2006, it was reported that the Tucson (Arizona) Sector of the U.S. Border Patrol had reported "more than a hundred" attacks against Border Patrol agents along the border by "paramilitary-looking attackers."  It was further reported that the narcoterrorists had placed bounties on the lives of U.S. law enforcement officers.  This vociferously in total disregard for U.S. official's responsibilities that demand defense of public land.

A report from Dallas, Texas, in 2005, advised of Latin American gang violence "that’s become all too common in Mexico, right here in Dallas."  The report described seeing "execution-style murders, burned bodies and outright mayhem."

Currently drug cartels have been blamed for nearly 600 kidnappings in Phoenix in 2007 and the first half of 2008.  Killings in Birmingham, Alabama, Atlanta, and other U.S. cities have been linked to the narcoterrorists.  Frustrations that echoed back recently as Texas law enforcement officials testified before a House Subcommittee, in Washington, about threats made against their families.

It was most disturbing to hear that U.S. Border Patrol agents reported that they were not prepared to fight an enemy "this sophisticated and well armed."  Left unchecked for several years without viable attention and strategies, or simply misdiagnosing or ignoring the symptoms of this plague to interdict the narcoterrorist threat, the situation has graphically worsened due to associated violent street gangs in major metropolitan areas such as Washington, D.C., New York, and Los Angeles.  Phoenix was recently named the "kidnapping capital of the U.S.," with more than "700 abductions-for-ransom" in the past two years. 

The effective containment of organized criminal syndicates requires cooperation and coordination of all available resources, combined in a strategic and proactive master plan.  The targeting of the leadership hierarchies must continue to be a top priority.  Drug decriminalization or legalization simply gives terrorists the security to continue to intimidate via supreme weaponry, death, and assorted mayhem to achieve desired results and establish others as an instrument of the oppressor's control.  They will always have an illegal cause, commodity, or service to supply, regardless.

A prime strategic and timely initiative has been the recent focus and attention to monitor for outgoing criminal profits and weapons leaving the U.S. and going into Mexico.  This strategy attacks the organized drug cartels at the source of their two major vices.

Mexican drug trafficking organizations have been on U.S. soil for quite some time.  They have established highly sophisticated smuggling infrastructures within the country.  And for distribution they utilize, among others, U.S. street gangs, prison gangs, and outlaw motorcycle gangs.

The "mega cartel" is continuing to merge as many rival factions fuse together in a unified effort of superior power and weaponry against police.  Much of this assimilation by Latin American gangs has been from within U.S. prison walls.

The extraordinary growth of these narcoterrorist organizations, and the force of homeland terrorists, range well north of the border and they are among us in our U.S. cities.  For example, there are 92 street gangs in the city of San Diego alone, with an estimated 4,000 members, as well as some 100,000 gang members in greater Los Angeles.

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Jerry Brewer is C.E.O. of Criminal Justice International Associates, a global risk mitigation firm headquartered in Miami, Florida.  His website is located at www.cjiausa.org.