Tag Archives: Sinaloa Cartel

Fighting A War With Economics

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On Friday, Breitbart reported that U.S. Department of the Treasury is targeting financial institutions and businesses involved in laundering money for the Mayos faction of the Sinaloa Cartel.

The article reports:

The U.S. Department of the Treasury singled out several key leaders and businesses tied to the Mayos faction of the Sinaloa Cartel, including a former mayor in the Mexican state of Baja California. The move targets accounts and money laundering operations, including hotels, restaurants, and bars in the popular beach destination of Rosarito, Baja California.

In their most recent move, U.S. Treasury officials moved to sanction several key leaders of the Mayos faction of the Sinaloa Cartel and their businesses. The sanctions not only freeze any accounts and assets they may have in the United States but also prohibit U.S. citizens and companies from doing business with them. In June, U.S. Treasury officials took similar actions against the Chapitos faction of the Sinaloa Cartel.

The Sinaloa Cartel’s internal war erupted last year after Los Chapitos—sons of imprisoned kingpin Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán—allegedly orchestrated the arrest of longtime patriarch Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, triggering a violent split between the cartel’s two dominant factions and reshaping Mexico’s criminal landscape.

The Trump Administration has labeled the Sinaloa Cartel as a foreign terrorist organization and accused it of being one of the leading producers and smugglers of fentanyl. Several members of the Sinaloa Cartel have pending indictments in the United States, not only for drug trafficking and money laundering charges, but specifically for fentanyl related cases.

In their most recent action, the U.S. Treasury listed Juan Jose “El Ruso” Ponce Felix as the leader and founder of the main armed wing of the Mayos. Earlier this week, the U.S. Department of State announced a $5 million reward for his capture.

Cutting off the money flow is not going to end either drug sales or human trafficking. However, making those businesses less profitable might slow their growth slightly. The only way to end drug dealing and human trafficking is to dry up the market. We need to work on that.

Federal Agents Doing Their Job

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On Wednesday, The Epoch Times posted an article about the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) crackdown on the Mexico-based Sinaloa cartel.

The article reports:

A nationwide crackdown on the Mexico-based Sinaloa cartel has resulted in hundreds of arrests and drug seizures, federal officials announced this week.

The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) on Sept. 8 announced 617 arrests as well as the seizure of 1,058 pounds (480 kilograms) of fentanyl powder, 714,707 counterfeit pills, 4,870 pounds (2,209 kilograms) of methamphetamine, 16,466 pounds (7,469 kilograms) of cocaine, and 36 pounds (16.55 kilograms) of heroin.

More than $11 million in currency and over $1.6 million in assets were also seized in the operation, along with 420 firearms.

…In an executive order earlier this year, President Donald Trump declared eight drug cartels as foreign terrorist groups, including the Sinaloa cartel, one of the largest and most powerful in Mexico. The Department of Justice (DOJ) has prioritized breaking up cartels and other gangs amid a broader push against crime.

Brian M. Clark, the special agent in charge of the DEA field office in Los Angeles, said in a statement that more efforts are needed against drug cartels.

The article concludes:

The Treasury Department in mid-August said it sanctioned two other Mexican drug cartels, Carteles Unidos and Los Viagras, and seven affiliated individuals while accusing the groups of engaging in terrorism, drug trafficking, and other crimes.

The Trump administration has recently signaled that it may use the U.S. military to conduct operations against major criminal organizations such as cartels and gangs. Earlier this month, the U.S. conducted an airstrike against what Trump administration officials say was a boat carrying drugs into the United States that had departed Venezuela with 11 Tren de Aragua gang members on board.

“Killing cartel members who poison our fellow citizens is the highest and best use of our military,” Vice President JD Vance wrote on social media on Sept. 6.

This is only one step in dealing with the drug crisis in America. At some point we need to get to the root of the problem. Why does America have so many people who take drugs? What can we do in the way of drug rehabilitation programs that will make a difference? I realize that in order for a person with a drug problem to be helped, they have to want help. Putting that aside, as a society, we need to find better ways to prevent people from starting to use drugs and better ways to help those addicted to drugs. We could start by making marijuana illegal again. Any law-enforcement professional will tell you that it is a gateway drug.

Fighting The Drug War

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On Wednesday, The Epoch Times posted an article about the largest seizure of chemical precursors for making drugs such as methamphetamine and fentanyl in U.S. history.

The article reports:

The chemicals, of Chinese origin, were headed to the Sinaloa cartel to be made into drugs that could be sold on the street.

When asked by reporters about the operation in which the chemicals were confiscated, officials said they were taken on the “high seas,” but declined to give further details.

…Had the precursors made it to their destination, they would have been made into hundreds of thousands of pounds of methamphetamine, with profits of more than $500 million, according to the officials’ statements.

Pirro said this seizure was made possible by the State Department’s decision to designate major drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations earlier this year.

The article concludes:

CBP  (United States Customs and Border Protection) Field Operations Director Jud Murdock noted that the Sinaloa cartel, which was slated to receive the chemicals, is one of the “most violent and brutal terrorist organizations in the world.”

According to Murdock, the cartel has produced and distributed record amounts of drugs worldwide and is responsible for countless deaths and destruction in the United States and abroad.

“The Sinaloa cartel activities are not merely criminal; they are acts of terror that threaten the safety and security of our nation,” Murdock said. “By targeting the supply chains and disrupting their operations, we are sending a clear message: DHS will not tolerate anyone or anything that wants to harm our community.”

This comes just days after former Mexican cartel kingpin Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada García pleaded guilty to drug charges in federal court in the Brooklyn borough of New York City on Aug. 25.

Zambada García, the longtime leader of the Sinaloa cartel, admitted to playing a role in a drug-trafficking operation that funneled large quantities of illicit substances, including cocaine and heroin, into the United States for years.

The prosecutors said that the Sinaloa cartel became the largest drug-trafficking organization in the world because of Zambada García and cofounder Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.

This won’t end drug use and deaths in America, but it is definitely a step in the right direction.

The Need For Cooperation On Border Security

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On Monday, Red State reported the following:

A former officer in the Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA) says the number of illegal aliens fleeing the United States over the northern border into Canada has surged due to President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement policies.

And an actual Mexican Sinaloa drug cartel smuggler confirmed business is booming in the opposite direction as illegals, through his assistance, are self-deporting to the Great White North.

The news comes from a “60 Minutes Overtime” segment airing Sunday night.

Kelly Sundberg, who spent 15 years with the CBSA and now researches border security as a professor at Mount Royal University in Calgary, spoke to the CBS show. He fretted that Trump’s policies have already increased the number of illegals flowing into Canada, and he expects a coming “tsunami.”

“Canada can expect a tsunami of illegal immigrants fleeing American authorities and coming into our country,” said Sundberg. “The numbers already are going up.”

“I hope I’m wrong, but it would appear that we’re going to be overwhelmed by the illegal immigrants fleeing American authorities coming into our country,” he added. “And they very well might be bringing guns and drugs with them.”

The article includes the human smugglers perspective:

Not content with Sundberg’s assessment, “60 Minutes Overtime” spoke to a drug and human smuggler working for the Sinaloa drug cartel who confirmed he’s seeing a significant increase in requests to cross the northern border from the US into Canada.

“Most of them are Venezuelans,” he told CBS. “Those people are afraid of being deported to their countries. Normally before, we didn’t see that much, maybe out of every 30 people we crossed, three or four would come up.”

“Now, maybe out of every 10 we cross, five go up [to Canada].”

Based on that obviously rough estimation, the smuggler’s personal numbers have jumped from about 10 percent to 50 percent of those looking to leave America.

Considering the smuggler admits that he not only moves people – including babies – across the northern border, but also significant quantities of fentanyl and weapons, it’s good that his business is moving in the other direction.

I think it’s time for the countries opposed to the drug and human smuggling cartels to work together to stop both.

You Don’t Have To Invade A Country To Destroy It

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There are two major problems caused by our currently porous southern border–how to care for all of the people entering America illegally and the wreckage caused by the drugs coming across the border. The havoc caused by those drugs is often overlooked, but it has impacted a lot of families in America.

On Wednesday, The U.K. Daily Mail reported the following:

  • Beijing fuels America’s fentanyl crisis by subsidizing manufacture of drugs 
  • China’s leaders even tip off dodgy firms being investigated by US agencies 

The article notes:

China‘s leaders give tax breaks to companies that produce fentanyl chemicals and cause some 80,000 US overdose deaths each year, a damning House report warns.

Beijing is fueling America’s fentanyl crisis by subsidizing the manufacture of materials used by traffickers to make pills outside the country, say papers from a committee on China.

Researchers accessed a government website that revealed tax rebates for the production of specific fentanyl precursors and other synthetics — as long as those companies sell them outside of China.

‘Through its actions, as our report has revealed, the Chinese Communist Party is telling us that it wants more fentanyl entering our country,’ said Rep Mike Gallagher, the Republican chairman of the special House committee.

Admittedly, this wouldn’t be an issue if there were not a market for the drugs, but this is a major problem for America both now and in the future.

The article concludes:

The groundwork for the US fentanyl epidemic was laid more than 20 years ago, with aggressive over-prescribing of the synthetic opioid oxycodone.

As US authorities clamped down on its prescription, users moved to heroin, which the Sinaloa cartel happily supplied.

But making its own fentanyl — far more potent and versatile than heroin — in small, easily concealed labs was a game changer.

The cartel went from its first makeshift fentanyl lab to a network of labs concentrated in the northern state of Sinaloa in less than a decade.

A single cartel ‘cook’ can press fentanyl into 100,000 counterfeit pills every day to fool Americans into thinking they’re taking Xanax, Percocet or oxycodone.

The pills are smuggled over the border to supply drug addicts across the US, including the homeless users seen stumbling around on the streets of San Francisco, New York and other big cities.

Fentanyl is so cheap to make that the cartel reaps massive profits even wholesaling the drug at 50 cents per pill, investigators say.

The drug’s potency makes it particularly dangerous.

The narcotic dose of fentanyl is so close to the lethal dose that a pill meant to ensure a high for a habituated user can easily kill a less experienced person taking something they didn’t know was fentanyl.

How many families have to be impacted by this drug before we seal our southern border?

More Bad News From Operation Fast And Furious

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22 – El Paso, Texas

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On Saturday the Los Angeles Times reported that 100 assault weapons acquired under Fast and Furious ended up in a home belonging to the purported top Sinaloa cartel enforcer in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, whose organization was terrorizing that city with the worst violence in the Mexican drug wars.

The article reports that three months into the Fast and Furious program, El Paso, Texas, began to emerge as a hub for the weapons traffic.

The article reports:

On Jan. 13, 2010, El Paso police stumbled upon 40 firearms after following a suspicious dark blue Volkswagen Jetta that backed into a garage at a local residence, according to federal court records.

The article further reports:

Two others, Ivan Chavira and Edgar Ivan Galvan, were subsequently charged in that gun recovery, along with the recovery of 20 Fast and Furious weapons on April 7, 2010, in El Paso. Those guns also were discovered by chance by local authorities, and ATF trace records show that the weapons were purchased in Phoenix two weeks before they were found in El Paso.

Notice that in both cases, the weapons were discovered by alert police officers–whatever tracing the government claims to have put on these guns was non-existent. The Los Angeles Times also posted a chronology of events regarding Fast and Furious through October 8. It is amazing to realize the scope of this program.

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