by Jason Beaubien
February 16,
2012
Mexican Federal
Police, some of them covered head to toe in white hazardous-materials suits,
paraded Jaime Herrera Herrera in front of the media in handcuffs this week.
Officials say he was the methamphetamine mastermind for Mexico's most wanted
man, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, who runs the powerful Sinaloa cartel.
Ramon Eduardo
Pequeno, the head of the anti-narcotics division of Mexico's federal police,
says Herrera trafficked tons of methamphetamines into Southern California
between 2008 and 2009 alone. The Mexican drug cartels started out smuggling
marijuana. They then expanded into cocaine. Now they're making a major push
into synthetic drugs.
Last week the
Mexican Army raided a ranch in Jalisco, near Guadalajara, and seized what they
claimed was 15 tons of methamphetamines. Announcing the bust, Gen. Gilberto
Hernandez Andreu said the lab had 15 reactors for cooking the drugs. He called
it a historic seizure.
'A Big Blow'
Some drug experts
have questioned whether this was really 15 tons of pure, street-grade product,
an amount equivalent to half of all the methamphetamines confiscated worldwide
in 2009. But even if the purity were low, this was still a huge laboratory
capable of producing significant quantities of narcotics.
"Certainly
[it] is a big blow to whoever was the owner of the shipments and the lab,"
says Antonio Mazzitelli, the regional representative for the U.N.'s Office on
Drugs and Crime for Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean.
The U.N. says
amphetamines are now the fastest-growing illicit drug in the world. Last year
synthetic narcotics surpassed heroin and cocaine to become the second-most-used
illegal substances on the planet after marijuana.
"The major
drug-trafficking organizations, particularly the Mexican one, are trying to
conquer new markets, to their methamphetamine production," Mazzitelli
says. "That means Latin America, but ... also other markets such as the
Asian one."
Cartels
Well-Positioned
Methamphetamines
are sold on the street as speed, crystal or ice. The drug can be highly
addictive and ravages the bodies of long-term users.
Ralph Weisheit, a
professor of criminology at Illinois State University, says meth is extremely
attractive for drug traffickers.
"You don't
have the bulk per dose that you have with marijuana," he said. "In
fact, you don't have the bulk per dose that you have with cocaine. It's so much
more powerful."
In 2009 Weisheit
came out with a book on the history of methamphetamines. He says the Mexican
drug cartels are well-positioned to expand into the business.
"They're in
a country where corruption is rampant, which means that getting the precursors
isn't going to be that big of a challenge," he said.
And he says
getting bulk shipments of those precursor chemicals is the biggest challenge
facing anyone who wants to produce industrial quantities of methamphetamines.
"These
precursors are coming from China; they're coming from India; they're coming
from countries that are, shall we say, a bit leaky anyway in terms of smuggling
things out," he said.
Because the
Mexican cartels already have sophisticated networks to smuggle marijuana and
cocaine into the U.S., they can move their crystal through those same channels.
Weisheit says over the past couple of years Mexican meth has moved steadily
from California and the border region into the heartland.
"For a
long time in the Midwest here, if you saw methamphetamine, it was almost
entirely in rural areas and almost entirely homemade," he said. "To
the extent it's not homemade anymore, it's Mexican and it's working its way
across the country as they ramp up production."
He expects
that in the coming years the amount of Mexican methamphetamines for sale on
American streets is only going to grow.
AUDIO for this post link on here
HAVANA has a forum post on the same subject read here
The U,S, will not tolerate this meth smuggling. They turned a blind eye when it was just weed but its a threat to Americas national safety to be smuggling those quantities of meth . The cartels are cutting their own throats by doing so...
ReplyDeletewell its not just meth, extasy is also growing like crazy theres very few people i know that havent tried it..
ReplyDeleteLOL @ 11:06 AM
ReplyDeleteHey 11:35 AM you like your meth eh? You'll still be laughing when your teeth are falling out and your body looks like you came from a concentration camp and you spend your days shooting meth and jerking off. Tweakers love that porn.
ReplyDeleteLOL @ 11:35 AM
@10:06am
ReplyDeleteOh yea the US will not tolerate this! These colors don't run!!! Haha. Don't give me that bull. Wait is that the same US that allowed Chapo's wife to enter the US. The same US that had secret meetings with Vicente Zambada? That US?? Should I go now?
@ February 16, 2012 11:06 AM WTF?!?!?!?!?!?! WHERE ARE YOU FROM AND WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN FOR THE PAST 20+ YEARS???? THIS ISN'T BREAKING NEWS.....MEXICO HAS BEEN EXPORTING METH FOR YEARS DUMB DUMB....AND IT WILL CONTINUE TO GET WORSE AND CERTAIN GOVERNMENT AGENCIES (ATF, DEA ETC.) WILL CONTINUE TO MAKE MONEY OFF OF IT...ITS JOB SECURITY TO HAVE A NON-STOP "WAR ON DRUGS"...NO DRUG TRAFFICKERS TO ARREST, NO MONEY.....STEP BACK AND LOOK AT THE BIG PICTURE....I KNOW YOU ARE PROBABLY 13-15 BUT AT LEAST YOU ARE THINKING ABOUT REAL ISSUES....
ReplyDeleteOkay... Let's get off the "US is making money off of drugs" talk. There might be some specific currupt individuals in the US making money off of drugs (which iwould be a whole different topic) but the US does not make money off of drugs. If the US "wants money" then they simply make it. But 39 billion annually - cost of agencies fighting drugs - other anti drug programs = next to nothing left for the US "making money" off of drugs. Get real.
DeleteSHOW ME PROOF that the US is making money. Anything but proof screams of Paranoia.
Thx too all the tweakers for paying my bills all these years and years to come haha PURO CHOIX SINALOA
ReplyDeleteWhat a silly thing to say almoat as silly as that town name "choix" jaja
Deletechingen su madre los de choix sinaloa
DeleteTo use drugs is ones choice.. No one else's fault
ReplyDeleteFor the most part true. But not 100%
DeleteLOL at the hazmat suits. Everyone buys into the fear of chemicals you can buy at the hardware store. The chemical cleanups are a scam, police in the know are operating them for big bucks.
ReplyDeleteYea I go to the hardware store and buy pesticides and acids. Every one knows they are harmless. What a scam. Got to go now my fingers are falling offff
Delete@February 16, 2012 3:15 PM
ReplyDeleteYou can buy harmless components from hardware shop, true. But when those are combined, they can be dangerous. Just like bombs what you can make of components from hardware shops.
My point is that it does not mean shit in means of harmness if you can buy those chemicals from hardware shop.
Salt for instance is made of Sodium and Chloride. Both are poisons.
DeleteThe Mexican drug trafficking organizations are in over their heads with meth manufacturing on this scale. Manufacturing synthetics on a profitable scale is not like growing marijuana or smuggling freebase cocaine. The minimum order for meth precursor chemicals is 10 tons. That's a lot of barrels. Mexican law enforcement can seize it at the port of entry or follow it to the lab. The Chinese sellers get paid if the shipment arrives or not. The precursor chemicals are legal for legitimate industrial use, but shipments are carefully recorded. To make it all work a college degree in business and chemistry is needed. What's the level of education of the drug trafficking organization bosses?
ReplyDeleteYou Dont think CDS or any major drug organization has people that are educated? The people you see getting killed or caught are the disposable folks. In a billion dollar bussiness there will be brains. Not justifying what their doing as meth is a rough drug. But these dudes have smart people on limited time working for them.
DeletePharmaceutical grade amphetamines like benzedrine and dexadrine and others should be readily available and at cheap prices like they used to be.
ReplyDeleteEND THE IMMORAL PROHIBITION WAR
WE WILL ALL FEEL BETTER WHEN IT HAPPENS
@February 16, 2012 8:32 PM THEN WHO THE FUCK FUNDS THE DEA AND THE ATF??? WHAT WOULD HAPPEN TO THESE AGENCIES IF THERE WASN'T DRUG DEALERS TO FIGHT??? ITS THAT SIMPLE IDIOT.....THEY NEED A REASON TO GET THERE FUNDING SO DRUGS BEING ILLEGAL AND FIRE ARMS BEING TRAFFICKED ILLEGALLY ARE KEEPING THEM IN BUSINESS......HOW COME IT IS SO HARD FOR PEOPLE TO WRAP THEIR MINDS AROUND THAT.....THE DEA WANTS THERE TO BE DRUG ISSUES SO THERE WILL ALWAYS BE WORK FOR THEM....THEIR BIGGEST FEAR WOULD BE TO DECRIMINALIZE DRUGS...IT WOULD DESTROY THAT AGENCY...CAN YOU UNDERSTAND THIS OR ARE YOU THAT RETARDED???
ReplyDelete