The pregnancy of the organized crime: "narcos" as a constitutive element of the Mexican society or Mexico as a "Narco-State"?

Résumé du document

In a historical perspective, Mexico has always represented a major supply route between the continent's major consumer of drugs (the US) and the principal suppliers (Colombia, Peru and Bolivia). The National Drug Intelligence Center considers Mexican drug cartels as dominating the illicit drug market in the United States and "use their well-established overland transportation networks to transport cocaine, marijuana, methamphetamine, and heroin, Mexican and increasingly South American, to drug markets throughout the country" (National Drug Threat Assessment, 2006). Ironically, the relative success in the last decade of the Colombian and American authorities in breaking up the two most powerful cartels have both pushed trafficking and distribution aspects of the cocaine trade further north to Mexico. Mexico's cartels already existed but became increasingly powerful with the demise of the Colombian Medellín and Cali cartels. In addition, in the 80's and early 90's, the cartels kept largely out of the limelight because of an implicit deal with the monolithic ruling party (PRI), but as the PRI lost power and the cartels fragmented, the fight for market share began.

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[...] Besides, it is well known that there is also enormous competition within law enforcement agencies to be assigned to key posts along major smuggling corridors. Regarding to such corruption, the main strategy of the government has been to fire or transfer individual officers and at times even disbands entire agencies and creates new ones. Such strategy, however, was extremely inefficient: in 1996, the Mexican attorney general estimated that "70 to 80 percent" of the judicial police force was corrupt. Moreover, many fired police officers have simply been rehired in other regions of the country and many have been reinstated. [...]

[...] Chronic drug consumption in Mexico has doubled since 2002 as has cocaine use-while U.S. cocaine consumption has dropped by 70% in the past two decades. An estimated of the Mexican population now consumes illegal drugs. None the less of all U.S. cocaine transits Mexico, and Mexico is also the dominant source of methamphetamine production for the U.S. market". He suggested that the United States has to support enhanced policing effort in Mexico because cannot afford to have a narco-state as a neighbor”. [...]

[...] Cartels are omnipresent in the Mexican society and it is not certain that any institution in Mexico has remained entirely uncontaminated by the drug trade. There are even allegations that the Catholic Church has willingly been the recipient of contributions from known drug traffickers. Just two years ago, the Fox government's investigation of money laundering included inquiries into the role of the Church. In addition, corruption seems to be intrinsically part of the society. Drug corruption can actually be interpreted as the equivalent of a tax. [...]

[...] Such policy is relatively recent since Mexican courts have always been reluctant to approve extradition of Mexican nationals, even when recommended by the Mexican Foreign Ministry. Moreover, adverse lower court decisions on other issues, particularly the question of life imprisonment and capital punishment (unconstitutional in Mexico) impeded the extradition process. However, the Calderon's administration put pressure on the courts and has tried to reform the system in order to facilitate the extraditions. Last but not least, Fox and Calderon implemented reforms in the police organization and created a new Federal Investigative Agency (AFI) patterned after the FBI to some extent. [...]

[...] Much of the intensified drug violence in Mexico is the result of open warfare among the different trafficking organizations. Figure II-21: The Mexican drug cartels' areas of influence. Source: The Merida Initiative: Guns, Drugs and Friends, Committee on Foreign Relations, U.S. Senate, 110th Cong., 1st Sess., December pp. Cartels are also branching out in other directions, such as human smuggling. As the price of smuggling an individual into the U.S. has increased from $1,500 or $2,000 to $5,000, mom-and-pop smugglers have been displaced by more professional organizations. [...]