My previous post, "Crime Syndicate" mentioned the Trump Crime Family as perhaps the most powerful crime syndicate in history. More likely, the Mexican cartels deserve that title. They have been active since U.S. prohibition, when they began smuggling whiskey and alcohol into the U.S. to sate the U.S. craving for alcohol. Prohibition was likely the dumbest thing Americans have ever done to the Constitution.
By prohibiting the sale and consumption of alcohol, the mafia and organized crime grew in strength. Mexico legalized all drugs back in 1940, but under pressure from the "holier-than-thou" American government, they rescinded the law, making them all illegal again. Now that cannabis has been legalized by some U.S. states, the cartels have shifted to other drugs, and to extortion rackets, including kidnapping for ransom and human trafficking. I hope Mexico can figure out how to deal with (eliminate) the cartels. Until they do, the relationship between the two countries will be strained, and millions of Americans (including us) will refuse to ever visit Mexico again. It's just not safe. Shit, the U.S. isn't very safe either, but at least it is my native country.
The writing below is from Mark Provost, an American who has lived in Mexico off and on over the years. He writes about the recent killing of the head of the Jalisco New Generation cartel at the hands of the Mexican military, and the resultant violence.
Cartel violence has broken out across Mexico. Since I've lived here four of the past seven years, I thought I'd provide some background since folks are interested in what's going on. This post isn't intended as a news report or expert analysis (I lack the qualifications for either) but rather relevant context garnered from reading news, personal accounts, and conversations with people who live here.
Cartel violence exploded across 20 of Mexico's 31 states after Mexico's security forces killed 'El Mencho', the Most-Wanted longtime leader of the world's most powerful cartel, Jalisco Nueva Generacion(CJNG).
Mexico's two major cartels, El Chapo's empire in Sinaloa and Jalisco Nueva Generacion (CJNG ), have grown significantly in recent years. They are no longer solely or predominantly 'drug cartels' as they have expanded well beyond that domain. The cartels have grown in membership, geographically, globally, militarily, and across various markets and industries they didn't historically operate in. Cartels have integrated into the formal economy and equally established toeholds across the informal sector. One of the most important money taps is extortion rackets.
CJNG is still engaged in the mainstay of human, drug, and arms trafficking, but in addition cartels increasingly rely on extorting communities and businesses of all sizes and market segments. Think of organized crime groups like La Cosa Nostra in Sicily or the mafia in the US, involved in trades like gambling, construction, real estate, trash pickup, trucking — but on an unimaginably grander scale. Cartels like Sinaloa and CJNG make Don Vito Corleone in 'The Godfather' look like a street kid running dime bags on the corner.
The extortion racket CJNG exploits is called 'piso' which translates to 'floor'. If you run a business in Mexico — even something as small as a lemonade or hot dog stand — you may be required to "pay piso." Piso is like rent in the sense that failure to pay will result in life-altering consequences. A vendor may outright own their building, bodega, or puesto with no mortgage, but they don't own the floor. Survival depends on one's ability to understand — and accept — that stark reality.
Sometimes the cartel wants a cut of the business; sometimes they want the whole enchilada. If you refuse, they blow your brains out in broad daylight and post the clip on Facebook and WhatsApp, which for whatever reason doesn't get censored or blocked like it does in the US. The clips go viral in the community where the violence is perpetrated and across social media and TikTok. Videos of beheadings, buildings burned to the ground, highway blockades with vehicles ablaze, dismembered body parts, people turned to soup, are static background. Street poles, town squares, and the walls of buildings are plastered with black and white photos of the disappeared. Everyone knows not to get involved and life goes on for many without any impact.
Whatever you do, don't you fucking dare report on cartel activity. Mexico is the most dangerous nation in the world for journalists. Reporters in Mexico are what elite reporters in the United States think they are.
Cartel members shake down various vendors, businesses, and employers across the grey economy. The potential market value of extortion rackets is so enormous it's difficult to quantify. Mexico's informal economy is several times larger than it is in the US — both in real terms and as a share of the total economy —comprising more than half of the national economy, according to estimates.
I talk to people here, friends, acquaintances and especially taxis who literally have their ears and eyes on the ground. We chat in hushed tones about you know what. I overhear radio discussion about cartel activity in one state or another.
Living here is different than what you see on Netflix because if you're not involved in the cartel or caught in their crosshairs, you're not going to see anything. For tourists, expats, and most of the middle class, violence is experienced as a backdrop of daily news reports, radio chatter, TV, and scrolling on social media. Less fortunate Mexicans are not so distant from it.
Mexico's major cities are mostly safe zones, no man's land where competing cartels don't battle against each other or the authorities. I imagine many the group's leaders and top brass live in or around major cities, so they don't want to shit where they eat. As well, any violence in wealthy or middle class areas will force the federal government to take decisive action.
My conversations with two taxi drivers can provide a glimpse into the 'piso' system. One conversation was actually in the US. A driver in Houston, who was older, whiter, and more formally-dressed than most ride share drivers, yet didn't speak rudimentary English, told me his story how he ended up in Texas.
A few years prior, he and his brother owned a mining business in Mexico, which part I can't recall. One day, he and his brother received a phone call every Mexican dreads: "Hey, we like your business." The call is not an offer, it is not a compliment, and it definitely isn't a negotiation.
The driver's brother, rightfully furious, refused to hand over their thriving mineral mining business. The cartel responded by kidnapping my driver. After several weeks, his fearless brother led a campaign along with government officials and law enforcement to successfully pressure the cartel to release him. I thought to myself, "at least his story has a happy ending." Months after my driver was released, however, the cartel murdered his brother and took over their family business. My driver, likely a former millionaire in pesos if not dollars, fled to Texas and was now driving me to the airport. I barely knew how to respond except to lend an empathic ear and offer condolences.
About a year later in Mexico City, when I relayed to a young taxi driver that I just flew in from Chiapas — the nation's poorest state and the epicenter of recent cartel horrors which escapes international attention — he engaged me on the subject, lowering his sunglasses through the rear view mirror, Qué hubo en Chiapas?, Hay acción alla, no?!"
I laughed and said I obviously don't know anything about anything. I'm just a dumb gringo who can barely speak Spanish, which isn't a lie. Anyway, he told me he had a good friend who operated five different car wash locations, a laundromat, and a few more cash-centric businesses. I vividly recall the driver telling me his friend earned $5k US dollars a week, which works out to $250k a year — a tidy sum in America, kingly for a young man in Mexico. One day, my driver's friend received the call. He gave up everything and now drives a taxi too. Any other option would've been his end.
Cartel activity has expanded geographically, throughout every pocket of North America and across oceans. The Mexican cartel is a misnomer; they operate in 50 countries.
What's less known is that in recent years, Mexican cartels gained control of ports and highways in Ecuador, Costa Rica, and throughout the Caribbean and South America. Cartels have achieved an especially large footprint in the Western Hemisphere. They not only run the ports, but they own lock, stock, and barrel several South American legislatures and national governments. Cartels have significant operations in every Western European country.
A non-insignificant share of Mexico's workforce are employed by the cartels in some capacity, estimated at 250,000, mostly men. Cartels are Mexico's fifth largest employer. Now, in addition to their militarized production and distribution empire in North America, are former fisherman, captains, dock workers, government officials, and truckers across all of Latin America.
Two stories surfaced in American media in recent days which may play a role in today's developments. The New York Times ran a piece about how Mexico's cartels are using US military-produced weaponry and artillery against government forces. I'm not talking about "military grade" weapons, I'm talking the friggin' shells are produced on US bases, by the Department of Defense with US taxpayer money. These are artillery rounds that saw a cinder brick building in half in a minute. The cartels have rocket propelled grenades, DIY armored vehicles, submarines, and surface-to-air mounted artillery that can shoot down helicopters and other aircraft. The cartels deploy swarms of rigged Chinese DJI drones to surveil and carry out bomb attacks in a low altitude theater of war. Mexican people are some of the most inventive people when it comes to improvising material culture and that resourcefulness applies to organized criminal operations.
A second story reported in US press, which may be related to today's takedown of' El Mencho', is how the federal government is finally cracking down on the illicit gasoline market. This major market of gas and diesel theft is referred to as huachicol" or "huachicoleo" and is done by tapping pipelines and other infrastructure and selling it on the illicit market. This is industrial scale sabotage — siphoning millions of gallons a day — and operated largely by cartels.
Mexico's national oil company PEMEX just got their shit together after decades of mismanagement. PEMEX won't be able to maintain their middling position amongst larger rivals unless they can invest, recoup, refine, and sell gas and oil. Neither Mexico's Treasury nor its energy sector can afford criminals siphoning millions of gallons from pipelines which by virtue of sheer distance are impossible to secure. This development may play a role in President Sheinbaum's decision to attack cartel leadership, but that's purely speculative. Perhaps I'm connecting dots which aren't there, but the timing suggests a possible link.
This much I can say with certainty. Taking on an organization of such unrivaled scope, size, logistics, and capacity for grizzly violence is undertaken only as a last resort. Any option, including maintaining the status quo, is preferable to inciting cartel terror.
Furthermore, the history of Mexico's drug war shows cutting off the head of the snake almost always leads to more bloodshed, as splintered factions battle and rival groups seek to gain turf. Cartels commit such gruesome atrocities and crimes against humanity that no government in the world would go toe to toe with them without carefully weighing the risks.
The brutal reality of confronting the cartels head on is why Mexico's government under the administrations of Claudia Sheinbaum, and her predecessor AMLO, preferred the strategy of 'brazos, no balazos' "Hugs, not shootouts". As you can imagine, the idea of hugging people who chop their enemies to pieces has been widely mocked.
The policy's effectiveness is up to interpretation. Tens of thousands of people died every year during Mexico's War on Drugs in the early aughts, as depicted in the popular Netflix series, Narcos. In some years, more people were killed in Mexico as a casualty of the drug war than in Iraq during the peak of conflict.
Not much has changed. In the early 2020s, tens of thousands of people are still being killed in drug and cartel related violence. By some measures, violence is as bad as it's ever been but it all depends on where you live. However bad drug-related violence persists, an open and protracted guerrilla war between government forces and the world's deadliest criminal organization is far worse.
The cartels have harnessed global logistics networks, taken control of international distribution hubs, acquired military weaponry, and leaned on high tech and high finance to become the most powerful criminal organizations which have ever existed. The cartels span the globe and operate within various industries overlapping extensively with the formal economy.
If you enjoy avocados, there's a good chance the 'green gold' was provided by cartels operating in the state of Michoacán. If you go on a beach vacation from Cabo to Tulum, there's a strong possibility the hotel you stayed at and the restaurants you dined in are cartel-owned or pay piso. The nightclub you danced at. The impoverished children dressed in rags trying to sell Chiclet gum or loosie cigarettes are enslaved by the cartel. Tourists never know but everyone else does.
For the cartel members throughout the organization, this is a way of life and survival. It's how millions of people feed their families and pay rent. Terrorism is a job. For the government of Mexico, a rival institution surpassing it in military, political, and economic power has been tolerated, but perhaps a red line has been crossed. Perhaps CJNG simply got too big for their britches.
For Mexico's business and political elite, cartels prevent the country from joining the G-15 to attain the status of a predominantly middle class modern democracy with a stable government and robust capital markets. For the people of Mexico, more than 99% of residents think cartel violence is as crazy as Americans do. Tragically, far fewer can avoid being terrorized by it.
It's critical to understand Mexican people didn't contribute to the crisis: few of the drugs are produced in Mexico, with the exception of meth; few of the drugs are sold or consumed in Mexico, again with meth as an exception; none of the military hardware is manufactured in Mexico.
The only thing entirely Made in Mexico is the cataclysm.
