As a reporter in San Diego in the early 1980s, the Mexican illicit drug business was small scale. Marijuana was smuggled, but it was of poor quality and in modest amounts.
Today, the drug mafias are economic powerhouses. Here is an excerpt from this year’s DEA drug threat assessment.
The Sinaloa Cartel operates in at least 47 countries around the world. In places like China, the Sinaloa Cartel sources precursor chemicals, traffics methamphetamine, and reinforces contacts
with Chinese MLOs. The Sinaloa Cartel also supplies methamphetamine to other Asian countries, like Thailand, and to countries like Australia and New Zealand, where the cost of methamphetamine– and therefore the profit back to the cartel– is many times higher than in the United States. In South America, the Sinaloa Cartel brokers shipments of thousands of
kilograms of cocaine into Mexico destined for the U.S. market, or into Europe, Australia, and New Zealand where cocaine nets as much as ten times the profit as selling in the United States.
Countries throughout Central and South America house permanent contingents of Sinaloa Cartel members who coordinate cocaine shipments or the importation of precursor chemicals for
movement onward to Mexico, disguising the shipment’s true origin. Mexican cartels have historically used locations on the African continent as transshipment points for cocaine destined
for Europe. Occasional DEA reports of the Sinaloa Cartel exporting their clandestine lab expertise into Africa have surfaced over the years; most recently, in June 2023, the Mozambique
National Police arrested several people in the process of building a drug production lab, including two Mexican nationals recruited by the Sinaloa Cartel for that purpose
The elephant in the room is why has the DEA proved incapable of thwarting the mafias. It has plenty of intelligence on the criminal operations, but the drugs keep flowing. Americans need to want to live rather than poison themselves. I had two shoulder operations in 18 months. I was prescribed oxycodone both times. In all, I have about 40 tablets. I consumed fewer than ten to deal with intense pain. I did not get addicted. Should I need it again, I will take the drug, and then stop.
Ricardo Chavira Chicano 