“Are the illegal drug trade and the Mexican cartels protected by criminal corruption inside the US government? How could we conclude otherwise?”
Over the years, I’ve written many articles about the crisis of illegal drugs in the US. It is a staggering human tragedy of broken lives, families, and communities and a major component of both spiritual and financial poverty.
Today, that crisis is more dangerous than ever.
Over 107,000 Americans died of drug overdoses in 2021 (opioids were 72% of that total), a 14% increase over the deaths in 2020. For 2022, the trend is horrendous. Year-over-year overdose deaths are running 30% over last year (here).
Perhaps more frightening, if that is possible, new synthetic opioids are finding their way into the dark underworld of drugs. Two of them already have law enforcement sounding the alarms. One is N-pyrrolidino etonitazene or “Pyro” on the street, and the other is Isotonitazene, popularly called “ISO.” Both are reportedly 20 times more potent than fentanyl (here) and (here) and can be mixed into fake Percocet or other popular street pills for an extra kick without the buyer knowing.
Savvy readers will not be surprised that these new killers come from China.
No one seems to care much, especially in Washington, DC. The federal government, complicit through its policies if not its deeds, rarely mentions the crisis.
Since the Biden cabal wrested control of the government, well over two million illegal aliens from 150 countries have been allowed – encouraged, actually – to walk into the US from Mexico with no end in sight. DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told Rep. Chip Roy at a recent House Judiciary Committee hearing that the DHS is now releasing up to 100,000 illegal aliens per month into the country’s interior.
They are supplied with cell phones, transportation and, unlike legal visitors to the US, don’t need to be vaccinated against anything. Investigative journalist Lara Logan recently told an Arizona audience that Border Patrol agents confirmed illegal aliens are given social security numbers at the border (here).
As bad as this is, the Biden gang has unleashed an accompanying disaster to the lawlessness on the 1900-mile border. The drug cartels that control much of Mexico and Central America have never had it so good. Transporting and steering illegals to the US border is now their most profitable business. The added benefit is that the chaos on the unregulated wide-open border means that the cartels can significantly tweak and expand their drug and sex trafficking business model.
Kinney County Attorney Brent Smith (just east of Del Rio, Texas) says, “[The] onslaught of illegal activity in our county has exploded. It’s out of hand.” He explained in an interview with NewsRadio 1080 KRLD that the county has become a hub for drug and human traffickers, “[all] run by the cartels. The cartels control both sides of the border right now, today. That’s more than a law enforcement issue. That’s a military and national security issue,” Mr. Smith added.
Lt. Col. Freeman Martin, Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) Deputy Director, explained the expanding dangers on the lawless border. Besides the “off the chart” increase in methamphetamine seizures, the DPS has seen an 811% increase in fentanyl. “We’ve seized enough fentanyl this year to kill 80 million people.”
A new report in The New York Post reports that seizures of fentanyl at the southern border have doubled in the last 12 months, year-over-year (here). And the horrifying reality is that overwhelmed border agents discover only a tiny fraction of smuggled drugs.
The Mexican cartels have graduated to sophisticated manufacturing facilities for fentanyl production using – you might guess – Chinese-supplied precursor chemicals. (In addition, the cartels are transitioning to much simpler methods for producing methamphetamine, or meth, and are already increasing supply substantially.)
Even though the Chinese government is turning a blind eye, if not actively colluding with the production and distribution of fentanyl and its chemical precursors, the US government is largely silent. Former Chief of the El Paso Police Department and Texas-based security consultant Robert Almonte told the NYP, “Border agents are not getting the support they need from the federal government to stop the flow of fentanyl, which is killing thousands of Americans.”
Doing nothing seems to be the official if unspoken policy.
Meanwhile, according to the DEA in a 2020 report, at least 13 major US cities have Mexican drug cartels expanding their existing presence and partnerships with other transnational gangs, US street gangs, prison gangs, and Chinese money laundering operations. With millions pouring across the border unchecked, one can only assume that expansion continues at breakneck speed.
It seems inevitable that the cartels will follow the successful business models tested and established throughout the Americas, demanding legitimate businesses in these cities pay “protection money” to operate – without serious push-back from the federal governments (here).
This model has been so financially rewarding in parts of Mexico that the cartels have become brazen. Several years ago, they moved into more affluent parts of Mexico City and increased their demands proportionally, indicating that the government can’t or won’t respond.
Unfortunately, “the war on drugs” has been no more successful than the “war on terror.”
Drugs are like camp followers to the human race. Wherever they have gone, there is a trail of addiction, degraded societies, and crippled empires, an enduring reminder that this curse is an evil warrior in the ancient spiritual battle around us. Drugs have provoked countless wars and created great fortunes on the back of misery and death. And despite laws, penalties, and draconian punishments, very little has changed over the ages.
In any rational discussion, directly securing the border through dramatic increases in ports of entry detection, personnel, equipment, electronic surveillance, and physical barriers would appear to be the logical response – and incentivizing the Mexican government’s cooperation in aggressively closing illegal crossing points on their side of the border by proposing to stop private electronic remittances to Mexican citizens by US relatives. These remittances are nearly $50 billion per year, amounting to nearly 5% of the GDP. In other Central American countries, the remittances are a far greater percent of the GDP.
Alas, we don’t live in such an America today.
Worse, since the Mexican government has been and is compromised, we must assume these cartels can, and have, purchased their reach into the US government, just like the Chinese have. The question begs an answer. “Are the illegal drug trade and the Mexican cartels protected by criminal corruption inside the US government?”
How could we conclude otherwise?
What else can explain the irrational resistance to controlling our national borders in Washington more simply than criminal corruption? There have already been numerous cases in Texas, Arizona, and elsewhere where local officials have been caught on the cartel’s payroll. What exempts the federal government?
The sheer dollar volume of illegal drugs is unknowable by its very definition, of course. But depending on whom is doing the guessing and using what information, the drug business is worth from $200 to $400 billion per year in the US, and the UN claims that worldwide it is over a half-trillion dollars. Un-taxed cash. .
How do billions of drug dollars move up and down the financial systems without inside help? The most obvious answer is that they don’t. At least two major international banks have already paid large fines for knowingly allowing cartel and drug money to be moved into their banking systems. Yet the two banks represent an insignificant fraction of the money rolled in and out of the financial system. More of a show than a victory.
Despite the money, effort, and words thrown at illegal drugs, there is never a respite. The Border Patrol seized nearly 500,000 pounds of drugs in 2019, including 300,000 pounds of pot, and the Coast Guard intercepted about 500,000 pounds of drugs, primarily cocaine. However, the street price of both cocaine and pot has dropped because of rapidly increased supplies.
The Washington politicians and moneyed patrons in the ruling class who have promoted illegal immigration and open borders are beyond contempt. They have a passion for people who break US immigration laws that they never show actual US citizens. Ultimately, they are directly responsible for importing vicious, violent street gangs and cartels, who have become the key domestic links for drug distribution, sex trafficking, and human smuggling.
As always, citizens “showing up,” getting organized, and getting in the faces of our elected officials at every level is the only hope for Americans. In 2022 there must be a national push-back against the death, crime, and madness caused by the open-border fanatics.
