Mexican Drug Cartels operating in the U.S. through street gangs

[Lucinda F. Boyd]

Many street gangs in the larger cities are now directly connected to the Mexican Drug Cartels (MDC’s). They smuggle drugs and humans into the U.S. via known and un-known smuggling corridors throughout the Southwestern United States. Law enforcement indicates that they work for and do the dirty work for the cartels in return for drugs. This dirty work includes murder, drug distribution, and collection of debts owed to the MDC’s by other gangs and drug traffickers nationwide.

Federal authorities point to the Mexican drug cartels that are ultimately responsible for border violence on both sides of the U.S. Mexican border and beyond, by having cemented ties to U.S. Street and prison gangs all across America. Many of these gangs operate in cities like El Paso, Tucson, San Diego and Los Angeles some like Barrio Azteca from El Paso who operate on both sides. Azteca and other U.S. gangs retail drugs that they get often fronted from Mexican drug cartels and Mexican drug cartel gangs. Mexican gangs run their own distribution networks in the United States, and they produce most of the methamphetamine used north of the border. They have even bypassed the Colombians several times to buy cocaine directly from producers in Bolivia, Peru and even heroin from Afghanistan. These gangs provide distribution and enforcement for the long reach of the cartels.

According to L.A. Weekly reporter Christine Pelisek writes about FBI’s 10 Most Wanted fugitive Jose Saenz who is from L.A., who raped and executed his former girlfriend, mother of his two-year-old baby girl, and, horribly, left her ravaged body sprawled in his grandmother's bedroom. That was just one of his many crimes. Watch the accompanying surveillance video to view the horrific execution of his buddy Oscar Torres by L.A. gang member and MDC’s hit man Saenz at a home in a suburb of Los Angeles.

Barrio Azteca according to law enforcement has provided the Juarez cartel with street enforcers to carry out hits and kidnappings on both sides of the border. In exchange, Barrio Azteca get drugs from the cartel at wholesale prices or fronted and handle street-level drug sales.

These same gangs often work as cartel surrogates or enforcers on the U.S. side of the border. Intelligence suggests Los Zetas They're known as "Los Zetas have hired members of various gangs at different times including, El Paso gang Barrio Azteca, Mexican Mafia, Texas Syndicate, MS-13, Harrmanos Pistoleros Latinos and many others to further their criminal endeavors. Dangerous Mexican Cartel Gangs

A Mexican Army Officer, who insists on remaining un-named, claims that Barrio Azteca is now also operating with and in conjunction with Los Zetas, along the Mexican border with Arizona.
Mexican authorities said U.S. intelligence pointed toward involvement in the slayings by the Aztecas, of Consulate employee Lesley A. Enriquez and her husband, Arthur H. Redelfs, whom were killed in Juarez when gunmen opened fire on their sport utility vehicle after they left a birthday party.
Jorge Alberto Salcido, the husband of a Mexican employee of the consulate, also was killed by gunmen after leaving the same event in a separate vehicle.
The governor of Chihuahua State in northern Mexico, where Ciudad Juarez is located, said recently that Mexican authorities are studying the possibility that Redelfs may have been targeted because of his job as a detention officer at the El Paso County Jail.
“Until we get other information, this is a line of investigation we want to follow up,” Gov. Jose Reyes Baeza said. “In the course of the investigation, other evidence is going to come up that we can share with the U.S. government ... to clear up the motive in this lamentable crime.”

Gen. Germán Redondo Azuara says he believes many of the drugs raised in Afghanistan, finds its way via smuggling routes into markets in both Europe and the United States where they are peddled by gang members. In turn millions of dollars and Eros are used to fund terrorist and their terror activities not only in Afghanistan but around the world. Most of these same terrorist drug organizations that fuel the terror network also help to fund the Taliban attacks in Afghanistan. Part of this illicit cash provides operating capital for international terrorist Osama Bin Laden and others.

The Columbian and Mexican drug cartels now believed to be working with international terrorist is the most pervasive organizational threat to the United States according to one D.E.A. agent. murder money & mexico: tijuana cartel [sec]

These new combined international drug trafficking organizations are complex organizations with highly defined command-and-control structures that produce, transport, and/or distribute large quantities of Afghanistan illicit drugs. Global Terrorist And Drug Trafficking Cartels
A high ranking ICE official claims the Mexican Drug Cartels (MDC’s) are perfect for the terrorist because they are active in every region of the country and dominate the illicit drug trade in every area in both Mexico and the United States. Because of this new alliance Mexican MDCs are expanding their operations dramatically in order to gain a larger share of the drug market. Colombian MDC’s are dominant cocaine and heroin traffickers, particularly in the Northeast; however, they are increasingly relinquishing control to Mexican MDCs in order to shield themselves from law enforcement detection. The Mexican Drug Cartels are already major transporters and distributors of cocaine and South American heroin into the U.S. They also distribute cocaine and other drugs to numerous other Mexican Drug Cartels, their gangs and criminal groups that are also active in the United States, the world’s largest users of cocaine and heroin.

Other reasons the terrorist have chosen the Mexican Drug Cartels is they control the transportation and wholesale distribution of most illicit drugs in every area of the western hemisphere, exerting unrivaled control over transportation and wholesale distribution of cocaine, Mexican heroin, Mexican marijuana, and ice methamphetamine. And they are now believed to use the same gangs to smuggle terrorist into the U.S. via these same smuggling corridors. Their established overland transportation routes and entrenched distribution networks enable them to supply primary and secondary drug markets throughout these regions. MDCs are further expanding their influence throughout the world.

Police say the Aztecas work for or are allied with the La Linea enforcement gang, which in turn works for the Juarez drug cartel led by the Carrillo Fuentes clan.

FBI agent Samantha Mikeska, who has been investigating the Barrio Azteca for more than eight years from the bureau's El Paso office, said that four of the gang's five capos are in prison. The exception is Ravelo.
Ravelo is suspected of running the Aztecas operations in Juarez and maintaining contact with top-level members of the Juarez cartel, Mikeska said.

According to a DEA report the Barrio Azteca was organized in the El Paso, Texas, County Jail in 1987 from where it moved to the streets and the Texas Department of Criminal Justice prison system. The Barrio Azteca prison gang – which has chapters in El Paso, Texas, and Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico – has historically been linked to the Juarez Cartel. Barrio Azteca membership is estimated at 3,500 inside and outside of the prison system.

Members have been reported in Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Nevada, Arizona, California, Oklahoma, Idaho, Washington, Kansas, Illinois, South Carolina, North Carolina, New Jersey, New York and Utah. They participate in enforcing the rules of the Juarez Cartel in El Paso, Texas, and southern New
Mexico. The El Paso Barrio Azteca accepts narcotics shipments in the U.S., stashes it and transports it (normally in secret compartments) to destination cities in the U.S. In some instances, they have also been involved in smuggling bulk currency to Mexico, where it is subsequently laundered. Barrio Azteca has also been involved in supporting alien smuggling groups when they operate in the U.S. The Barrio Azteca allegiance to a cartel facilitates its access to narcotics, finances, and protection from Mexican LEAs.”

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Sources:

EL PASO INTELLIGENCE CENTER
El Paso Police Dept.
Juarez Police
Mexican Federal Police
Mexican Army Officer
El Paso Sheriff’s Office
FBI
U.S. Border Patrol
L.A. Weekly
Gov. Jose Reyes Baeza
ICE

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