Mexican DTOs are the greatest drug trafficking threat to the United States

Mexican DTOs are the greatest drug trafficking threat to the United States; they control most of the U.S. drug market and have established varied transportation routes, advanced communications capabilities, and strong affiliations with gangs in the United States. Mexican DTOs control a greater portion of drug production, transportation, and distribution than any other criminal group or DTO. Their extensive drug trafficking activities in the United States generate billions of dollars in illicit proceeds annually. Law enforcement reporting indicates that Mexican DTOs maintain drug distribution networks or supply drugs to distributors in at least 230 U.S. cities. Mexican drug traffickers transport multiton quantities of drugs from Mexico into the United States annually using overland, maritime, and air conveyances. The use of varied conveyances enables Mexican drug traffickers to consistently deliver illicit drugs from Mexico to warehouse locations in the United States for subsequent distribution.
Mexico- and U.S.-based Mexican drug traffickers employ advanced communication technology and techniques to coordinate their illicit drug trafficking activities. Law enforcement reporting indicates that several Mexican DTOs maintain cross-border communication centers in Mexico near the U.S.-Mexico border to facilitate coordinated cross-border smuggling operations. These centers are staffed by DTO members who use an array of communication methods, such as Voice over Internet Protocol, satellite technology (broadband satellite instant messaging), encrypted messaging, cell phone technology, two-way radios, scanner devices, and text messaging, to communicate with members. In some cases DTO members use high-frequency radios with encryption and rolling codes to communicate during cross-border operations.

Mexican DTOs continue to strengthen their relationships with U.S-based street gangs, prison gangs, and OMGs for the purpose of expanding their influence over domestic drug distribution. Although gangs do not appear to be part of any formal Mexican DTO structure, several Mexican DTOs use U.S.-based gangs to smuggle and distribute drugs, collect drug proceeds, and act as enforcers. Mexican DTOs’ use of gang members for these illegal activities insulates DTO cell members from law enforcement detection. Members of most Mexican Cartels–Sinaloa, Gulf, Juárez, and Tijuana –maintain working relationships with many street gangs and OMGs.

The National Gang Threat Assessment 2009 (National Gang Intelligence Center, January 2009) discusses — again in a general way with a few lame “examples” — the interfaces of U.S.-side gangs with the Mexican DTOs and other criminal organizations:

Gang Relationships With DTOs and Other Criminal Organizations
Some larger gangs have developed regular working relationships with DTOs and other criminal organizations in Mexico, Central America, and Canada to develop sources of supply for wholesale quantities of illicit drugs and to facilitate other criminal activities. According to law enforcement information, gang members provide Mexican DTOs with support, such as smuggling, transportation, and security. Specific examples include:Some prison gangs are capable of directly controlling or infuencing the smuggling of multihundred kilograms of cocaine and methamphetamine weekly into the United States.
Cross-Border Gang Activity U.S.-based gang members are increasingly involved in cross-border criminal activities, particularly in areas of Texas and California along the U.S.-Mexico border. Much of this activity involves the trafficking of drugs and illegal aliens from Mexico into the United States and considerably adds to gang revenues. Further, gangs are increasingly smuggling weapons from the United States into Mexico as payment for drugs or to sell for a significant profit. Examples of such cross border activities include:

Street and prison gang members have established networks that work closely with Mexican DTOs in trafficking cocaine and marijuana from Mexico into the United States for distribution.

Some Mexican DTOs contract with gangs in the Southwest Region to smuggle weapons from the United States to Mexico, according to open source information.

A Case In Point

This is where specific facts alleged in an actual case help fill in the picture.

The following excerpt from an affidavit filed in support of a criminal complaint in the pending case of United States V. Mauricio Mendez (U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California, Docket No. 3:09-mj-00473-RBB, filed Feb. 13, 2009) alleges in some detail how the drug trade is actually working on the ground between at least this Mexican Mafia crew and a Mexican DTO:

Beginning in early 2008, a drug trafficking group associated with the Arellano-Felix drug trafficking organization began to interact with, and pay “taxes” to, the Mexican Mafia. The Arellano-Felix group paid its “taxes” to the Mexican Mafia primarily by providing representatives of the Mexican Mafia with drugs.

In early September 2008, agents recorded a meeting between the leader of the Arellano-Felix group and defendants [Mauricio] Mendez and [Ruben] Gonzalez. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss the Arellano-Felix group’s aiding another Mexican drug trafficking group associated with the Mexican Mafia. One of the leaders of the other drug trafficking group was defendant Jorge Lerma-Duenas. Lerma-Duenas’ group claimed to have a means of smuggling bulk shipments of marijuana and other drugs through the international ports of entry by using commercial trucking from Mexico. However, Lerma-Duenas’ group claimed that a switch in the drivers of the commercial trucks had interfered with their smuggling scheme. Mendez stated that he and other gang members intended to travel to Mexico in order to disable the uncooperative driver so that the other, co-opted driver could retake the route — it was Mendez’s stated intent to break both of the uncooperative driver’s legs. Mendez sought the Arellano-Felix group’s aid in providing additional security for Mendez for the trip to Mexico. The leader of the Arellano-Felix group agreed to provide security for Mendez but also sought to form a larger relationship with Lerma-Duenas’ drug trafficking group in order to use Lerma-Duenas’ trucking route to smuggle marijuana for the Arellano-Felix group. Over the next weeks, agents recorded more meetings in which these topics were discussed between the leader of the Arellano-Felix group, Mendez and Lerma-Duenas. Mendez also brought members of his crew to these meetings…
Cross-border relations apparently are not limited to the business of drugs. The affidavit also describes a 2008 kidnapping and attempted murder in San Diego that was commissioned from Mexico:
The next series of events arises out of the armed kidnapping and subsequent attempted murder of a male victim by defendant Mendez’s crew. In a recorded meeting, Mendez admitted that the kidnapping was committed on behalf of individuals in Mexico. The kidnapping was foiled when the victim succeeded in fleeing his kidnappers. At the time, one of the kidnappers…attempted to shoot the victim but missed. Officers recovered a .40 caliber shell casing at the scene of the shooting.The affidavit and a subsequent indictment detail many other violent criminal acts committed by this Eme crew. But these paragraphs speak directly to the relationship of at least this crew and the Mexican side of the violent drug trade.

Alert Issued for 17 Afghan Military Members AWOL From U.S. Air Force Base

I want to say up front that I am not an expert on security issues, nor do I have inside knowledge of what is about to occur. America is being assaulted from so many different fronts that it will be hard to stop the next 911 from happening. The next terrorist attack I feel will be on US infrastructure, and not done for body count or effect.

What we should be focusing on is commercial air craft,such Fed-ex planes,UPS planes, small commercial carriers. These planes are easily compromised because of the make of the pilots who fly them, and who loaded them! I think they will use these planes to attack of power grid with oil refiners be secondary targets. I do not believe that the Gulf oil well platform blowing up was an accident. The cause of cutting corners does not make sense when BP's company is a stake. Was this the first wave of a new set of attacks? We have explosions at natural gas pipelines and power sub stations across the country blowing up and not making the national news? Not one storey? I call this the 800 effect ( dubbed for flight 800) because of the way the Clinton White House covered up flight 800 . I believe that these planes will be flown into Nuke plates in Pa, NY, Fl, Tx, Co, and Ca. I know at this point your saying he is crazy that could never happen. It was said that planes being flown into the world trade center was never thought of in the security community? Fox thought of it 2 years before it happened and aired the Lone Gun Man 6 month's before 911 happened. In the pilot terrorists take control of a large passenger plane and head it towards the World trade center towers?

The terrorists need to cause an effect so large and in the open that it can not be covered up. Closing down the grid for a couple of month's to a year would cause that very thing. The radiation clouds alone will cause devastation beyond belief. This will force Obama to declare Marshall Law and seize control of what's left of America. This Is dubbed the (V effect) based on the movie V for Vendetta and the Guy Fawkes story.

Watch the Pilot episode of (The Lone Gunman) Before you say that I am crazy. Watch it on youtube. Watch for yourself who was thinking out side the beltway box!

I am sure the story below has nothing to do with the therory of this mad man!






A nationwide alert has been issued for 17 members of the Afghan military who have gone AWOL from an Air Force base in Texas where foreign military officers who are training to become pilots are taught English, Fox News.com has learned.

The Afghan officers and enlisted men have security badges that give them access to secure U.S. defense installations, according to the lookout bulletin, "Afghan Military Deserters in CONUS [Continental U.S.]," written by Naval Criminal Investigative Service in Dallas and obtained by FoxNews.com.

The Be-On-the-Lookout (BOLO) bulletin was distributed to local and federal law enforcement officials on Wednesday night.

The Afghans were attending the Defense Language Institute at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas. The DLI program teaches English to military pilot candidates and other air force prospects from foreign countries allied with the U.S.

"I can confirm that 17 have gone missing from the Defense Language Institute," said Gary Emery, Chief of Public Affairs, 37th Training Wing, at Lackland AFB. "They disappeared over the course of the last two years, and none in the last three months."

The most recent Afghan to disappear from Lackland was First Lt. Javed Aryan, who went AWOL in January 2010, Emery told FoxNews.com. The others listed in the NCIS report disappeared at various times last year.

Each of the missing Afghans was issued a Department of Defense Common Access Card, an identification card used to gain access to secure military installations, with which they "could attempt to enter DOD installations," according to the bulletin. Base security officers were encouraged to disseminate the bulletin to their personnel.

"The visas issued to these personnel have been revoked, or are in the process of being revoked. Lookouts have been placed in TECS," it reads.

Treasury Enforcement Communications System (TECS), which is shared by federal, state and local law enforcement agencies, is a computer-based database used to identify people suspected of violating federal law.

Afghans are not the only foreign military who have gone AWOL from Lackland, Emery said.

"In 2009, the Defense Language Institute English Language Center reported two other students from countries other than Afghanistan went missing," he told FoxNews.com. "They include one Iraqi who requested asylum in Houston and one Djiboutian whose status is unknown. To date in 2010, one student from Tunisia and one from Guinea Bissau have gone AWOL in addition to the Afghani student [Aryan] who went AWOL in January.

"To put these numbers in perspective," Emery said, "more than 3,400 international students entered training at DLI in 2009, including 228 from Afghanistan."

A senior law enforcement official said Friday that the Afghans' disappearance was more of an immigration violation than a security threat, saying there are no "strong indications to any terrorism nexus or impending threat."

The official further said that an unspecified number of the 17 have been caught. "A number of these guys have already been located or accounted for by now," the official said. "Some are in removal proceedings to be deported already. (Authorities) still need to locate the others, and that is why the bulletin went out."

The official said the information is "kind of old" -- up to two years -- but added, "It is important in the sense that some people look to come to the U.S. and will take advantage of invitations to train or attend a conference or to study, etc. But their real intention is to get to the U.S. and start a new life. It is not completely rare for this to happen....

"Although we are vigilant and need to work toward not allowing this to happen," the official said, this alert should "not necessarily" be described as "a national security threat, more of a 'hey these guys violated our laws and we need to find them.'"

Included in the bulletin are photos of the 17 men, accompanied by their dates of birth and their TECS Lookout numbers.

Click here for the names of the 17 Afghan military members named in the alert.

The bulletin requests, "If any Afghan pictured herein is encountered, detain the subject and contact your local Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office, the FBI or NCIS."

"When a DLI student goes missing," Emery said, "officials report the incident to the Department of Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement as well as the sponsoring service branch. Invitational Travel Orders, passports, driver licenses, and airline tickets are revoked in order to hamper travel opportunities for the missing students."

The FBI and NCIS did not respond to requests for comment. A Department of Homeland Security spokesman referred FoxNews.com to the FBI.