When compared to the more well-known threats to U.S. security such as China’s ambitions in the South China Sea or Russia’s recent renewed actions in Europe, many in America will overlook the threat of transnational organized crime (TOC). The intelligence community (IC) must ensure U.S. policy makers do not solely pay attention to the far threat, but that they also devote attention to the near threat on the U.S. southern border. The length of the border between the U.S. and Mexico is 1,951 miles long and spans four U.S. states and six Mexican states. There are about 12 million people living in 30 paired U.S.-Mexican cities that are situated directly across from each other along that long border. The vital reason for that attention is that TOC originating from Latin America pose a great threat to the U.S. government. TOC has national and international implications for America’s public safety, democratic institutions, and economic stability.
Drug cartels are more commonly known by the term transnational criminal organization. The meaning of TOC and a transnational criminal organization (TCO) is practically the same. Mexican drug cartels have exerted their influence in the entire U.S. and are mainly comprised of eight cartels. The cartels currently active in the U.S. include the Sinaloa Cartel, the Juarez Cartel, the Gulf Cartel, the Knights Templar, the Beltran Leyva Cartel, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, Las Moicas, and Los Zetas. Mexican drug cartels represent a threat to public safety in the U.S. and in Mexico.
The Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) considers the cartels as the biggest drug threat to America. Those eight drug cartels are responsible for violence in the U.S. and in Mexico. The statistics provided by the Mexican government show that since 2006, more than 179,000 murders have been linked to cartel violence. The Los Zetas cartel group has even carried out multiple mass murders as they executed 78 immigrants in the Mexican town of San Fernando in 2010. Months later, Mexican authorities discovered 193 bodies from at least 47 mass graves in the same area as the previous killing of immigrants. The 193 unidentified bodies were found to have been tortured and then killed by Los Zetas. The killings linked to cartel violence are not only constricted within Mexico, but they are occurring inside the U.S. as well. A report from Narcosphere shows that close to 5,700 people from 2006 to 2010 died on U.S. soil from cartel related drug-war violence. The report estimates that at least 1,100 homicides in the U.S. are related to the U.S. drug war against the cartels.
Another reason why TOC and TCOs are a threat to U.S. public safety is because Islamic terrorist groups can leverage the capabilities that Mexican drug cartels possess in order to conduct planning and preparation operations for future terrorist attacks inside the American homeland. The drug cartels are not only trafficking drugs. They are also heavily involved in human smuggling, human trafficking, and weapons trafficking. To become profitable, the cartels have developed the subject matter expertise to successfully smuggle their drugs, humans, and weapons past the U.S.-Mexico border and into the U.S. interior.
A Judicial Watch report stated that Mexican cartels have assisted Islamic terrorists in carrying out planning and preparation operations in the U.S. by helping them cross in to and out of the porous U.S.-Mexican border. Located not far from El Paso, Texas is an ISIS jihadist who has transited back and forth through the border and has been identified as living in the Mexican state of Chihuahua. This ISIS operative named Khabir has previously trained hundreds of Al Qaeda fighters in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Yemen. According to a Judicial watch source, Khabir has trained thousands of men, mainly Syrians and Yemenis, to fight in a training base located in the border region near Ciudad Juarez. Khabir is in charge of a ISIS cell that operates in Ciudad Juarez which is on the other side of the border with El Paso, Texas. Khabir has boasted that he could easily cross through the border with a handful of men and kill thousands of people in Texas or Arizona within a couple of hours.
Another example of cartels enabling ISIS operations is from a Judicial Watch report dated April, 14, 2015. The two unnamed sources for the report include a Mexican Army field grade officer and a Mexican Federal Police Inspector. The report details the exact location of a ISIS base that is only eight miles from the U.S. border and that there is multiple ISIS cells operating out of Ciudad Juarez. The area around the ISIS base is controlled by cartels which make it dangerous and hostile for the Mexican Army and Federal Police to conduct operations. The sources state that the smugglers working for the Juarez Cartel have facilitated movement of ISIS terrorists through the border into New Mexico and into Texas. Mexican intelligence sources state that ISIS is conducting reconnaissance of nearby universities, government facilities, electrical power facilities, the White Sands Missile Range, and Fort Bliss.
Besides affecting public safety, TOC is a threat to democratic institutions. A country like Mexico with its corruption and weak rule of law makes it vulnerable to TOC influence. TOC fosters a culture of corruption as it seeps into and spreads even further into elements of Mexico’s government, businesses, industry, law enforcement, and security agencies. Corrupt officials will more easily “look the other way” if confronted with TOC activity. TOC networks can influence the political process of a weakly governed nation in a multitude of ways. They can do that by using bribery; establishing shadow economies; infiltrating financial and security sectors; and making themselves viewed as legitimate alternatives to meet the needs for governance, security, social services, and citizens’ lives. As TOC networks grow in power, they undermine governance, rule of law, judicial systems, freedom of the press, democratic institutions, and transparency. The head of Mexico’s intelligence organization, Guillermo Valdes, stated that drug traffickers have become the principal threat to Mexico’s democratic institutions as they strive to take over the power of the state. Mr. Valdes said that many members of the local police force, the judiciary, and Congress have been bribed by the cartels as they seek to protect their business. The threat to America’s democratic institutions comes as TOC continues to grow in power in Mexico. They may seek to use their power and influence to further “proselytize” Mexico’s government instability into U.S. so that the cartels can more easily expand their business and profits in the U.S. market.
Besides the national and international implications that TOC has on public safety and democratic institutions, TOC takes advantage of ineffectively governed countries to meet the selfish interests of their criminal organization which negatively hinders the country’s economic activity. Corruption through bribery is one of the major enablers for a TOC. Corruption disrupts the rule of law which in turn affects sustainable development for Mexico. Opportunities for Mexico’s people to advance socially and economically are hamstrung as efficiency and funds are wasted due to corruption. Once TOC has become entrenched in Mexico’s democratic institutions, then it becomes extremely difficult to purge them completely from the system.
One unexpected consequence of TOC in Latin America has been the large number of young unaccompanied children who are fleeing their country as they look to enter America in order to attain a better life. Four main reasons for why unaccompanied children are migrating out from Central America is because of high violent crime rates, poor economic conditions set by relatively low economic growth rates, high poverty rates, and the presence of transnational gangs. TOC has flourished by taking advantage of the state weakness and corruption that exist in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras which handicaps the country’s ability to protect its youth. The actions of TOC have stimulated a deluge of unaccompanied children to the U.S. southern border. The cost to U.S. economic security is unable to be determined at this time, but one can be fairly certain that the U.S. government had never envisioned budgeting limited resources towards the 2014 American immigration crisis.
TOC might not be the top priority on the minds of U.S. policymakers because of U.S. attentions focused on ISIS in Syria/Iraq or on the effects of the European Union’s refugee crisis. But, the IC must enlighten our policymakers that TOC from Latin America is a threat to U.S. interests. The nature of the threat has national and international implications for America’s public safety, democratic institutions, and economic stability. A genuine risk exists for ISIS fighters in Ciudad Juarez to use cartel smuggling expertise to safeguard passage through the U.S.-Mexican border. The U.S. must pay attention to the capabilities and intentions of TOC and terrorist groups in order to maintain America’s security, stability, and economic vitality.