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InvisibleveggieM

Registered: 07/25/04
Posts: 17,504
Why no big drug bosses this side of border?
    #7500320 - 10/09/07 01:37 AM (16 years, 3 months ago)

October 9, 2007 - chron.com

Why no big drug bosses this side of border?
Latin America may say they exist, but U.S. experts insist it's too risky

Latin Americans bristle when Washington points a finger south and lectures about drugs.

They note that when the U.S. government talks about which cocaine cartels operate in Mexico or Colombia, officials tick off foreign drug lords' names, preferred smuggling routes and sometimes even the tattoos they sport.

But when it comes to what is going on in the United States — the world's biggest consumer of illegal drugs — federal agents and police catch a lot of dealers but never snare Mr. Big, or even acknowledge he exists.

Where is a real-life Tony Montana, the Miami drug baron portrayed by Al Pacino in the classic movie Scarface?

What about an American version of Pablo Escobar, the Colombian who was known for his gold-plated bathroom and was the most infamous cartel boss ever?

"I certainly would love to see where is the Pablo Escobar of Texas," Colombian Vice President Francisco Santos, who was once kidnapped by Escobar, said on a recent visit to Houston. "I would love to know."

Former Mexican President Vicente Fox shared Santos' concern.

"That is the question I always ask myself," Fox said recently by phone from California. His speaking tour comes to Houston next week. "Who crosses or permits the drugs to be crossed at the border, and when on the U.S. side of the border, who transports the drugs to the markets of this great nation?"

The sideways glances continue as the nations try working together more closely than ever, and that includes a proposed $1 billion U.S. government aid package to help Mexico fight drug trafficking.

"This is a way for them to turn the situation around on the United States," Bruce Bagley, a University of Miami drug-trafficking expert, said of the concerns shared by Santos and Fox. "They are feeling under siege as the United States is harping against their organizations and their inability to catch them."

No widespread corruption

American drug fighters say that for a variety of reasons, the biggest of bosses stay out of the United States.

"You don't have prominent cartel figures here. Our law enforcement efforts are too good. Our intelligence is too good and we don't have the vast corruption," said Fred Burton, a former federal anti-terrorism agent who is on Gov. Rick Perry's Border Security Council.

James Kuykendall, a retired Drug Enforcement Administration agent, said big-time dealers want to avoid the type of scrutiny they'd draw in the U.S.

"If you get too flashy, there is a red flag," he said. "We do not pursue it as well as we could, but we seem to do better than most Latin American countries."

Kuykendall pointed to how the drug cartels follow the lead of legitimate corporations to stay out of trouble.

"When you get to the supply end, it is one dude in charge of everything," he said.

Even if larger-than-life kingpins aren't in the United States, the Justice Department holds out numerous arrests of mid-level traffickers. And two men charged with running cocaine empires from Mexico have been handed over to the United States for prosecution in Houston's federal courthouse.

Drawing parallels to mafia

Osiel Cardenas is accused of heading the Gulf Cartel and threatening to kill an FBI and DEA agent he and his soldiers caught on the streets of the Texas-Mexico border city of Matamoros.

Cardenas, who was later arrested in Mexico, remains in the U.S. government's custody pending a May trial, but his gold-plated gun, cowboy boots and bulletproof vest will remain south of the border, where they are displayed at Mexico's version of the Pentagon.

Juan Garcia Abrego ran the same cartel years ago, but was caught and handed over to the United States. He is now serving multiple life sentences at the federal "supermax" prison in Colorado.

Eduardo Valle, a Mexican commentator who once led a Mexican-government task force that tried to capture Garcia Abrego, said it is naive to believe there are not at least powerful regional drug bosses that take care of business in the United States.

He pointed to the way the Italian-American mafia used to have a grip on the nation's underworld, and said it is likely that tradition has continued with other groups who maintain well-established distribution networks needed to move billions of dollars worth of drugs.

An indictment against Cardenas doesn't seem to put his feet squarely in the United States, but indicates that over the phone and in other ways, his instructions were followed.

The document traces drugs and money from Mexico through Houston and on to other points in the United States. Authorities charge that over a five-month period in 2001, about $41 million in drug proceeds was counted at a hideout in Georgia.

Peter Moskos, a professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York and a former police officer, said it is hard to fathom how perhaps billions of dollars could be handled by the drug cartels without high-level players on U.S. soil.

"There has to be someone on this side making the big bucks off it — it is not the low-level drug dealer on the corner," Moskos said.

Mervyn Mosbacker Jr., a Houston lawyer who has served as the region's top federal prosecutor, said drug bosses realize if they're going to stay free, they've got to avoid the United States.

"They can't bribe enough people, and it is not their environment; they got control of their cartel through a number of different means — that doesn't mean they can control wherever they go," he said. "There is no reason for the cartel guys to come into the United States," he continued. "Even if there was, there is too big of a risk."

Lt. Gray Smith, with the Houston police narcotics division, said the city sits at the heart of a major pipeline for sneaking drugs from Mexico to the East Coast and other areas.

He noted while there are no Pablo Escobar types, about 14,000 people a year are arrested in the Houston area on narcotics charges, ranging from possession of less than a gram of cocaine to several thousand pounds of marijuana.

Among the biggest differences in running a drug syndicate in the United States versus Latin America is that here there are just pockets of corruption, while in Latin America entire systems are dirty enough to let bosses control their local village or even a federal government.

"It is apples and oranges," he said of comparing the environment for crime in Latin America to the United States.

Kingpins 'a dying breed'

Still, Colombia's Santos said, there has to be someone in charge.

"To a certain extent, you never see one of the big drug cartels or drug lords that distribute cocaine on the streets of New York or Houston or Los Angeles being caught," the vice president said.

He said he doubts bosses would be far from the money they are making in the United States. "Where is that money? Who is managing it? I don't know."

Bagley said cartel leaders have learned to diversify and depend on alliances with smaller groups.

"We just don't produce large-scale, larger-than-life capos as they do in Latin America," he said.

"My analysis is there will be fewer of them," Bagley said. "They are a dying breed ... there are too many people willing to squeal on you, and you draw too much attention."


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OfflineSeussA
Error: divide byzero


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Re: Why no big drug bosses this side of border? [Re: veggie]
    #7500594 - 10/09/07 06:24 AM (16 years, 3 months ago)

There are plenty of big drug bosses this side of the border, but they hide in plain sight: Alnylam, Unimed, Momenta, McNeil, Purdue, Acceleron, etc...


--------------------
Just another spore in the wind.


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InvisibleMrKite1
Cosmo

Registered: 03/02/04
Posts: 1,384
Loc: AK
Re: Why no big drug bosses this side of border? [Re: Seuss]
    #7500647 - 10/09/07 06:50 AM (16 years, 3 months ago)

Quote:

Seuss said:
There are plenty of big drug bosses this side of the border, but they hide in plain sight: Alnylam, Unimed, Momenta, McNeil, Purdue, Acceleron, etc...




Indeed, with a license to kill too just so long as they provide that black box warning. :lol:


--------------------
When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.


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Invisiblewps
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Registered: 09/22/07
Posts: 579
Re: Why no big drug bosses this side of border? [Re: veggie]
    #7500670 - 10/09/07 07:10 AM (16 years, 3 months ago)

they busted some real life American kingpins in the 80's, guys with secret runways in miami. Its all in the documentary 'Cocaine Cowboys'.

its kind of weird you don't hear about stuff like that in America anymore. My theory is that most of the American 'kingpins' that get busted make deals to help the US govt take down foreign cartels, hence the busts are not publicized, for the informants safety.


--------------------
"America touts itself as the land of the free, but the number one freedom that you and I have is the freedom to enter into a subservient role in the workplace. Once you exercise this freedom you've lost all control over what you do, what is produced, and how it is produced. And in the end, the product doesn't belong to you. The only way you can avoid bosses and jobs is if you don't care about making a living. Which leads to the second freedom: the freedom to starve."

- Tom Morello


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Offlinemoon_glue
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Re: Why no big drug bosses this side of border? [Re: wps]
    #7500819 - 10/09/07 08:39 AM (16 years, 3 months ago)

you know there is a kingpin in cali serving the rich hollywood crowd, and one in new york serving all the wall street goons.

and in between those two states, im sure theres some kind of managment. kilos dont have legs.


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Invisiblebait_
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Re: Why no big drug bosses this side of border? [Re: wps]
    #7500837 - 10/09/07 08:50 AM (16 years, 3 months ago)

Quote:

wps said:
they busted some real life American kingpins in the 80's, guys with secret runways in miami. Its all in the documentary 'Cocaine Cowboys'.




You might want to watch that movie again because the people who got busted were just couriers. They neither owned nor distributed the cocaine that was entering into the United States. They were just contracted to get it in the country. They were worth millions because the cocaine industry is worth billions.


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Invisiblewps
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Registered: 09/22/07
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Re: Why no big drug bosses this side of border? [Re: bait_]
    #7500880 - 10/09/07 09:15 AM (16 years, 3 months ago)

yeah, come to think of it, I do remember the guy saying that he was just a smuggler, and that the Colombians did all the distribution once the product got to the states.

That one dude Max did snitch on the Columbians as well as the Americans, though, and is now in the federal witness protection program, which kind of supports my theory that most high-level American dealers getting tagged aren't well-known because they testified against their foreign bosses in order to get out of trouble.


--------------------
"America touts itself as the land of the free, but the number one freedom that you and I have is the freedom to enter into a subservient role in the workplace. Once you exercise this freedom you've lost all control over what you do, what is produced, and how it is produced. And in the end, the product doesn't belong to you. The only way you can avoid bosses and jobs is if you don't care about making a living. Which leads to the second freedom: the freedom to starve."

- Tom Morello


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InvisibleAlion
Male


Registered: 08/14/07
Posts: 462
Re: Why no big drug bosses this side of border? [Re: wps]
    #7501192 - 10/09/07 10:51 AM (16 years, 3 months ago)

Blow


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Offline2FiNiTe
ConsideratlyKilling Me
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Re: Why no big drug bosses this side of border? [Re: Alion]
    #7503247 - 10/09/07 09:44 PM (16 years, 3 months ago)

Today is not like the days of George Jung and the "Blow" era. Today there are many many many dealers that most people in the US would consider big time but because of the numbers of these dealers they aren't. They are considered "mid-level" dealers. Myself I have two friends in jail for life, for smuggling cocaine from Peru. They had a fleet of cargo ships they would dock at low level, low surveilled ports all over Florida. I helped in some of the selling but these guys were mainly friends and NOT business partners, tho the partys defiantly got crazy. And no I'm not talking about flashy mother fuckers that deal in birds. I'm talking about guys who live in hotels, switch rooms everyday switch hotels every 3 days. Dealing in 50-100 birds (kilos for you out of the game) a night, bribing not cops but whole departments, judges, owning numerous legit businesses . I don't care who you are thats a lot of money and for most people thats considered "big time". Now that they are in jail for life, 10 other people took their place.

The fact is, in the US there are way too many big time dealers that bribe too many high level people to even consider "going after". The corruption they talk about that isn't in the US is simply on such a high level it surpasses anything before it, in any country, at any time. I've seen it first hand, let me assure you, there are lots of "big time" dealers in the US but its impossible to catch them all. And in the event 100 worse would spring up in their place. This is the plain and simple reason the government will not consider or acknowledge the fact.

Today people are not as ignorant of the money involved as they once were.


--------------------
"Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war that we know about peace, more about killing that we know about living."

General Omar N. Bradley


Edited by 2FiNiTe (10/09/07 09:50 PM)


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