More impacts of Mexico’s war against drug cartels

 Mexico's geography in the Press  Comments Off on More impacts of Mexico’s war against drug cartels
May 162011
 

Drug trafficking is one of the North America’s major contemporary issues, with widespread ramifications not only for Mexico, but extending well beyond her national borders. This is the first of an occasional series of updates examining some of the numerous different effects of the war on drug-related violence on Mexican society, the environment and the economy.

How many members of Mexico’s military have lost their lives in the war against the cartels?

In “InSight Map: Counting Federal Casualties in Mexico”, Patrick Corcoran takes a look at the confusing statistics relating to the deaths of members of the military in Mexico. The number claimed by the government (470 federal forces killed since 2000) does not match any of the conflicting numbers released on separate occasions by the Defense Secretariat for the number of military personnel killed in the on-going war against the drug cartels.

Drug war violence has decreased press freedom in Mexico

Freedom House, in its annual report, says that Mexico has experienced one of the world’s most radical declines in press freedom. Mexico’s press is now categorized on the Press Freedom Index as “not free”, alongside press in Cuba, Honduras and Venezuela.

More than 60 journalists have been killed in Mexico in the last decade, including 10 in 2010. Many others have been kidnapped, or intimidated. Several journalists have sought asylum in the USA. Drug cartels have increasingly pressured local press and news stations to broadcast partisan material, regardless of its accuracy.

Earlier this year, several major media groups in Mexico agreed to de‑glorify drug trafficking by refusing to show any grisly photos or menacing messages. The pact has been heavily criticized in some sectors, however, mainly on the grounds that it downplays the gravity of the on-going violence.

New laws enacted to protect all migrants in Mexico

It is not only the USA that has problems coping with undocumented or unauthorized migrants. More than 300,000 immigrants pass through Mexico each year on their way from Central America to the USA. Mexico actively patrols its southern border to limit the number of Central Americans who succeed in reaching the interior of the country.

Now, a new federal law expressly recognizes and protects the human rights of all migrants in Mexico, regardless of their place of origin, nationality, gender, ethnicity, age and immigration status. The new law guarantees access to basic services such as health and education. It comes in the wake of the horrific discovery in northern Mexico in recent months of several mass graves of migrants, mainly originating from Central America. The graves are believed to be linked to people-trafficking operations, known to be a source of revenue for drug cartels.

Drug gangs and the price of limes

One unexpected by-product of Mexico’s on-going drug wars in January 2011 was a steep rise in the price of limes, a quintessential ingredient of Mexican food and drinks. Prices in Mexico City quadrupled to almost four dollars a kilo ($1.80 a pound).

The interesting story behind the sudden increase in lime prices is given by Nacha Cattan in The Christian Science Monitor. An accompanying graphic shows how drug traffickers intervened in the normal supply chain, “extorting farmers, attacking produce trucks, or causing more time‑consuming border inspections”.

Most of the limes sold during winter months come from the semi-tropical orchards around Apatzingán, a town in Michoacán, western Mexico. Local truckers have to pay drug gangs up to 800 pesos ($66) a truckload for safe passage. Thefts of fully-laden trucks rose 50% in some areas last year. Allegedly, the gangs also influence prices by limiting harvesting and restricting the operation of packing plants.

Fortunately for Mexican lime-lovers, the price of limes has since returned to normal, with drugs gangs switching their attention to the much more lucrative trade in avocados.

How long will drug-related violence in Mexico last?

Even the Public Security Secretary, Genaro García, has now stated publicly that Mexico’s war on drug cartels will not be over any time soon. He argues that Mexico’s campaign against the cartels is having success, but that organized crime and violence related to drug production and trafficking are unlikely to fall within the next seven years.

Previous posts about the geography of drug trafficking and drug cartels in Mexico:

Geo-Mexico: the geography and dynamics of modern Mexico discusses drug trafficking in several chapters. A text box on page 148 looks at trends in the drug trafficking business and efforts to control it. Buy your copy today to have a handy reference guide to all major aspects of Mexico’s geography!

The geography of drugs-related deaths and violence in the state of Chihuahua

 Updates to Geo-Mexico  1 Response »
Apr 042011
 

The map (below) of drug war death rates for the 67 municipalities of Chihuahua reveals a rather complicated pattern that is not amenable to easy explanation.

There is a clear cluster of very high death rate municipalities around Ciudad Juárez, which has for years been the main focus of drug violence in Mexico.

Drug war deaths in the state of Chihuahua
Drug war deaths in Chihuahua (Dec. 2006—Dec. 2010). Cartography: Tony Burton; all rights reserved.

There is also a group of high death rate municipalities west and south of Chihuahua City suggesting that it might be a center of significant drug cartel activity.

The reason for high death rate areas on the western and southern borders of Chihuahua is not readily apparent from the map, though they do coincide with the area of lowest HDI (Human Development Index) scores in the state (see Geo-Mexico, figure 29.3).

This south-western part of the state forms part of the Western Sierra Madre physiographic region (see map linked to above), an area of rugged relief with limited highway connections where rivers have carved giant canyons (such as the Copper Canyon system) into the forested plateaus and mountains. The “culture of violence” in this region, sometimes called Mexico’s “Golden Triangle”, was analyzed by Carlos Mario Alvarado in “La [Sierra] Tarahumara, una tierra herida: análisis de la violencia en zonas productoras de estupefacientes en Chihuahua”  (The Tarahumara Sierra, a wounded land: analysis of the violence in narcotic drug production zones in Chihuahua) published by the state government in 1966.

Alvarado found that between 1988 and 1993, in the southernmost municipality of Guadalupe y Calvo and in neighboring drug-growing municipalities, murders had a bimodal distribution each year, with peaks in April-May-June (when poppies and marijuana are planted) and September-October-November (when they are harvested). The four-year drug-violence death-rate for those municipalities in the early 1990s was significantly higher than the four-year drug war deaths ration shown on the map for 2006-2010.

Guadalupe y Calvo, “one of the most violent municipalities in Mexico”, had a four-year rate for 1991-1994 of about 510/100,000 inhabitants. Batopilas’s rate, 478/100,000, was almost as high. The rate in Morelos, sandwiched between these two municipalities, was over 700/100,000. On this limited evidence, it does not appear that this region has actually become any more violent than it used to be!

Returning to the map, it is also interesting that there are some relatively low death rate areas along the rather isolated Mexican-USA border in eastern Chihuahua. Careful analysis of the Chihuahua highway network does not provide any real insights to explain the mapped pattern.

There is some good news. For the 2007-2010 period, five of Chihuahua’s 67 municipalities did not experience a single drug war related death, though they are all very small municipalities with an average population of about 2,000.

Finally, we should remember that even the lightest areas on the map represent municipalities with death rates quite high compared to the rest of Mexico. Five of the municipalities in this group of 18 have death rates over twice the national average and 12 are above the average.

Previous posts in this mini-series:

Geo-Mexico: the geography and dynamics of modern Mexico discusses drug trafficking in several chapters. A text box on page 148 looks at trends in the drug trafficking business and efforts to control it. Buy your copy today to have a handy reference guide to all major aspects of Mexico’s geography!

An in-depth analysis of drug violence in Mexico from the University of San Diego’s Trans-Border Institute

 Books and resources  Comments Off on An in-depth analysis of drug violence in Mexico from the University of San Diego’s Trans-Border Institute
Mar 222011
 

The Trans-Border Institute (TBI) at the University of San Diego has published a very informative analysis of drug violence in Mexico which goes into far more depth than our short blog posts. The report is part of the TBI’s Justice in Mexico initiative, which is focused on crime, policing and the legal system in Mexico. The Justice in Mexico website provides public access to several books and working papers, databases and specially-drawn maps, produced by the project’s researchers.

Drug Violence in Mexico: Data and Analysis Through 2010, authored by Viridiana Ríos and David Shirk, takes a close look at both the patterns and trends relating to drug violence. The full text of the 21-page report (as a pdf file) is available here.

The report includes numerous maps showing the pattern by municipality for several successive years; when seen in sequence, the shifting focus of drug violence is clearly apparent. A large number of additional maps showing state-level values can be accessed from the Resources on Drug Violence page. These maps use total values for each state, whereas most of the maps and statistics we have included in previous posts (here, here and here) use rates/100,000 people.

Ríos and Shirk balance the bad news about the increase in drug violence in Mexico with their assessment that Mexico’s war against the drug cartels is beginning to show some signs of (limited) success. They point, for example, to the gaps created in the leadership structures of several cartels, due to the capture or killing of high-profile traffickers such as Teodoro “El Teo” García Simental, Edgar “La Barbie” Valdez and Nazario “El Chayo” Moreno.

The TBI report on drug violence includes a brief discussion of some of the  methodological issues connected to alternative and overlapping definitions, and to the various alternative sources of data. In particular, they consider the relative merits of official government figures and those compiled by Reforma, a national daily. Ríos and Shirk acknowledge that the recent provision of more comprehensive statistics by Mexico’s federal authorities represents a major improvement as regards transparency. Interestingly, the figures released by the government in January 2011 are far higher than those compiled by Reforma.

The TBI investigators are not alone in puzzling over the quality of the data for drug-related violence. A recent Spanish-language article elsewhere, by José Merino, compared the number of drug-war deaths recorded in the government figures to the total number of homicides (drug-related or not) in a database managed by INEGI, the National Statistics Institute, based on death certificates in each municipality. Merino identified 105 municipalities (out of 2,456 nationwide) where the total number of drug-related homicides appeared to be higher than the total number of all homicides. The most extreme case in Moreno’s comparison was the discrepancy of 199 homicides in the case of Culiacán, the capital of the state of Sinaloa. The INEGI database showed 1,104 homicides in total, while the federal government figure, for drug-related homicides only, was 1,303.

The purity of illicit drugs declines with distance from the Mexico-USA border

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Mar 122011
 

The concept of distance decay is often used by geographers when trying to describe and explain spatial patterns.

Distance decay is the “attenuation of a pattern or process with distance” (Dictionary of Human Geography, Blackwell 1986). It is one of the fundamental concepts behind many geographic models (e.g. Christaller, von Thünen) and the basis of W. Tobler’s first law of geography: “everything is related to everything else, but near things are more related than distant things.” (Tobler 1970)

A recent study published in Addiction found that the principle of distance decay applies to the purity of drugs sold in the USA. Most drugs entering the USA do so via the Mexico-USA border. It presumably costs more, and entails higher risks, to transport drugs further north than just over the border.

The health risks associated with illicit, non-prescription drugs are related to drug purity. Addiction rates also vary with purity. Surprisingly, the geographic pattern of drug purity within a single country has rarely been investigated in detail before.

The researchers analyzed the drugs seized in about 240,000 drugs incidents for the period 1990-2004. They also looked at the correlation between drug purity and the time, and size, of each drug seizure.

The researchers found that the purity of methamphetamine, cocaine and heroin generally decreased with distance from the border. Beyond 1450 km (900 miles), however, heroin purity increased again towards the northeast. The pattern for heroin, and a similar pattern for methamphetamine after 2000, suggest that perhaps some of these drugs were imported via the eastern seaboard of the USA (heroin) or from southeastern Canada (methamphetamine). The findings also suggest that methamphetamine from Canada may be on a larger scale than previously thought.

For all three drugs, the purity of small amounts seized close to the border showed more variation than was true for seizures further north.

Given the conclusions of this study, researchers may be better able to predict the areas which are likely to have higher rates of drug dependence and overdoses.

And some people still think geography is boring?

Sources: Cunningham J.K., Maxwell J.C., Campollo O., Cunningham K.I., Liu L.M., Lin H.L.: “Proximity to the US-Mexico border: a key to explaining geographic variation in US methamphetamine, cocaine and heroin purity”. Addiction. 2 August 2010.

Tobler, W. 1970 “1970: a computer movie”. Economic Geography 46: 234-240.

The changing geography of drug trafficking routes in Mexico

 Mexico's geography in the Press  Comments Off on The changing geography of drug trafficking routes in Mexico
Feb 262011
 

Last year, we reproduced an earlier version of this Stratfor map in The geography of drug trafficking in Mexico. The recently released new version, shown below, shows several changes from the earlier version.

Drug routes through Mexico

Drug routes in Mexico. Copyright Stratfor. Click map for enlarged version.

Map © Copyright 2010 Strategic Forecasting Inc, STRATFOR www.stratfor.com. This map is republished with permission of STRATFOR.

The main changes are that the new map:

  • does not show the territories controlled by each of the major drug cartels. As we have noted previously, the boundaries between cartel territories are hotly disputed and in a constant state of flux.
  • shows more marijuana traffic originating from Jalisco and Michoacán states.
  • labels the importing of ephedra from Asia as coming “from China”
  • adds a new route for ephedra trafficking from Central America through Guatemala and along Mexico’s Pacific Coast towards Acapulco.
  • strengthens the arrows showing a much larger movement of “all drug traffic” northwards from central Mexico through Chihuahua state and towards the border city of Ciudad Juárez, with branches of this flow extending not just to the Pacific Coast (as in the old map) but also to the Gulf Coast.

What do these changes mean?

First, it is apparent that the overall pattern of drug trafficking routes is more complex than originally thought. Shifting alliances between trafficking groups means that the “map” is being constantly redrawn to reflect the changing relative strengths of the different cartels and drug gangs.

These shifts in routes, and in the zones at the margins of each cartel’s territory mean that the focus of drug-related violence in Mexico is not limited to fixed locations, but that virtually anywhere in the country could find itself “in the wrong place at the wrong time” at some point in the future.

This is quite different to the pattern of drug-related violence 30 or 40 years ago, when most of the problems were concentrated in a relatively small number of generally isolated areas where the drugs were actually grown.

To read more posts about the geography of narcotic drugs in Mexico, use the “drugs” tag in the navigation bar on the left hand side of each page.

Other relevant link

Geo-Mexico: the geography and dynamics of modern Mexico discusses drug trafficking in several chapters.  A text box in chapter 20 looks at the drug trafficking business and efforts to control it.  Buy your copy today to have a handy reference guide to all major aspects of Mexico’s geography!

Are communities in Mexico which have large numbers of foreigners affected by the war against drugs?

 Updates to Geo-Mexico  2 Responses »
Feb 092011
 

Previous posts in this mini-series analyzed the recently released data on drug war deaths for Mexican states, the largest cities, and the communities with the highest death rates per 100,000 population. This post looks into the number and rates of drug war deaths for 25 communities with large numbers of non-Mexican (ex-pat) residents or visitors. Drug war deaths include deaths of drug cartel members, law enforcement personnel, and innocent by-standers.

Drug war death rates of larger communities of particular ex-pat interest were addressed in an earlier blog which focused on municipalities with populations over 750,000. The table (link above) indicates the number drug war related deaths (from December 2006 through December 2010) and the rate per 100,000 population in the 25 municipalities.

In general, these municipalities have death rates below the national average. The rates for Xalapa, La Paz, and Los Cabos are less than one eighth the national average. Those for Guanajuato and San Miguel de Allende are almost as good. Apparently, foreigners in these communities have relatively little to worry about with regard to drug war violence.

Only six of the 25 have death rates above the national average. Mazatlán has the highest drug war death rate, about four times the rate for all of Mexico, but still less than a fourth that of Ciudad Juárez. The rate for Playas de Rosarito is also very high, even higher than that of its northern neighbor Tijuana. Interestingly, its southern neighbor Ensenada has a low rate, about one eighth that Playas de Rosarito.

The drug war death rate for Tepic, Nayarit is over twice the national average. The rates are also relatively high for Cuernavaca and Nuevo Laredo. Actually, the rate for Nuevo Laredo is less than most of the smaller municipalities surrounding it. There is considerable variation among three adjoining municipalities near Lake Chapala: Ixtlahuacan (43.8), Jocotepec (28.5) and Chapala (18.4). All three have rates many times higher than the nearby city of Guadalajara (9.7).

I wonder how much these drug war death rates are affecting or will affect the choices that foreigners make concerning where to live or where to vacation in Mexico?

Previous posts in this mini-series:

Related posts about the geography of drug trafficking and drug cartels in Mexico:

Geo-Mexico: the geography and dynamics of modern Mexico discusses drug trafficking in several chapters. A text box on page 148 looks at trends in the drug trafficking business and efforts to control it. Buy your copy today to have a handy reference guide to all major aspects of Mexico’s geography!

Which communities in Mexico have the highest rates of drug war deaths?

 Updates to Geo-Mexico  Comments Off on Which communities in Mexico have the highest rates of drug war deaths?
Feb 052011
 

Guadalupe, in the state of Chihuahua, with 139 deaths among a population of only 6,458, has the highest drug war death rate in Mexico: 2,152 drug deaths per 100,000 population. Mier (Tamaulipas) and General Treviño (Nuevo León) are not far behind. Most of the municipalities in the attached table (link below) have rather small populations; 15 of the municipalities had fewer than 6,500 inhabitants in 2010.

A previous post noted that among big cities, Ciudad Juárez had the highest rate of drug war deaths by far, over twice the rate for the runner-up Culiacán in Sinaloa. However, Ciudad Juárez ranks only 10th when smaller municipalities are included in the analysis. The table lists the 20 municipalities with the highest rates of drug war related deaths (from December 2006 through December 2010) per 100,000 population. Drug war deaths include deaths of drug cartel members, law enforcement personnel, and innocent by-standers.

All 20 municipalities listed in the table are in one of four border states: Chihuahua, Sonora, Nuevo León and Tamaulipas. In fact, half of the 20 municipalities are in the state of Chihuahua. Five form a cluster around Ciudad Juárez on the border and four are just south of Chihuahua City. The three in Tamaulipas and three in Nuevo León are bunched together between Nuevo Laredo and Reynosa within 60 kilometers of the border. Three of the four in Sonora are not far from the highway joining the state capital Hermosillo with Nogales on the US border.

Previous posts in this mini-series:

Related posts about the geography of drug trafficking and drug cartels in Mexico:

Geo-Mexico: the geography and dynamics of modern Mexico discusses drug trafficking in several chapters. A text box on page 148 looks at trends in the drug trafficking business and efforts to control it. Buy your copy today to have a handy reference guide to all major aspects of Mexico’s geography!

Is drug war violence concentrated in Mexico’s largest cities?

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Feb 012011
 

It is commonly believed that crime and murder rates are highest in the largest cities. Is this the case for Mexican drug war deaths? Recently available data (from Mexican government) on drug war deaths indicate that this generalization is definitely NOT TRUE for Mexico’s largest cities. Drug war deaths include deaths of drug cartel members, law enforcement personnel, and innocent by-standers.

True, the largest numbers of deaths were recorded in some of the larger cities: Ciudad Juárez (6,637 deaths), Culiacán in the state of Sinaloa (1,890), Tijuana (1,667), Chihuahua City (1,415), and Acapulco (661). On the other hand, the number of deaths per 100,000 population was four to five times higher in some small municipalities in the states of Chihuahua, Sonora, Tamaulipas, and Nuevo León. A future post will take a more in-depth look at the drug war death rates in these smaller communities.

In this post, we consider only those Mexican municipalities whose 2010 population exceeded 700,000. The table below indicates drug war death rates per 100,000 population since December 2006 for the 22 Mexican municipalities with 2010 populations over 700,000. It is no surprise that the rate for Ciudad Juárez (484.7) is the highest, about 16 times the national average of 30.8. The city accounted for about 30% of the country’s drug war deaths during the four year period. In general, the cities with the highest rates are in the northern or western areas with concentrated drug cartel activity. However, Saltillo in the northern state of Coahuila has one of the lowest rates.

Only six of the largest 22 municipalities in the table have death rates above the national average. Monterrey is just below the average, Guadalajara is less than a third the average and Mexico City is less than a quarter. Two Mexico City suburbs, Nezahualcoyotl and Ecatepec in the State of Mexico, have rates nearly twice that of the capital, but are still less than half the national average. Zapopan, a suburb of Guadalajara has a rate 36% higher than Guadalajara.

Puebla, the center of the fourth largest metropolitan area in the country has an extremely low rate, less than 3% of the national average. Querétaro and Mérida also have very low rates.

Our next post in this mini-series will look at the smaller municipalities which tend to have the highest drug war death rates of all.

Previous posts in this mini-series:

Related posts about the geography of drug trafficking and drug cartels in Mexico:

Other relevant link

Geo-Mexico: the geography and dynamics of modern Mexico discusses drug trafficking in several chapters. A text box on page 148 looks at drug trafficking business and efforts to control it. Buy your copy today to have a handy reference guide to all major aspects of Mexico’s geography!

The rates of drug war deaths vary enormously in Mexico’s states

 Updates to Geo-Mexico  Comments Off on The rates of drug war deaths vary enormously in Mexico’s states
Jan 292011
 

Despite what some media reports might suggest, not all parts of Mexico are plagued with serious drug war violence. A previous post – Deaths from war on drugs have increased rapidly since 2006 – discussed which states accounted for the most drug war deaths during the last four years and noted that these states were mostly in northern and western Mexico. The data on drug war deaths include deaths of drug cartel members, law enforcement personnel, and innocent by-standers.

A more accurate way to compare states is to incorporate population to determine the rates of drug war deaths. The table above, and the map below, were compiled using the recently released data on deaths and the preliminary results of the 2010 census. There are some obvious methodological issues associated with combining drug war death figures for a four-year period with a population “snap shot” taken in mid-2010, but we believe these issues are minor and will not have any significant effect on the broad patterns of drug war deaths that the analysis reveals.

Drug war death rates, by state, December 2006-December 2010

The national average rate is 30.81 deaths per 100,000 population. It is not surprising that the State of Chihuahua, which led the country with 10,135 deaths, had the highest rate, almost 300 deaths per 100,000 population. The rate for Chihuahua is almost ten times the rate for the country as a whole. The rates for the other leading drug war states are significantly smaller, but way above the national average.

The four most populous states, Mexico, Federal District, Veracruz and Jalisco, are centrally located and have death rates ranging from half the national average for Jalisco down to about a fifth for Veracruz. Interestingly, for these four states the rates decline from west to east. This pattern does hold when less populous intervening states are included. Two of these, Querétaro and Puebla have about the lowest rates in the country, about one-fifteenth the national average.  Yucatán also has a very low rate. The drug war death rates for Tlaxcala, Puebla and Yucatán are less than one half of one percent of the rate in Chihuahua. Clearly, some parts of the country are far more affected by drug wars than others.

Previous post in this mini-series:

Related posts about the geography of drug trafficking and drug cartels in Mexico:

Other relevant link

Geo-Mexico: the geography and dynamics of modern Mexico discusses drug trafficking in several chapters. A text box on page 148 looks at the drug trafficking business and efforts to control it. Buy your copy today to have a handy reference guide to all major aspects of Mexico’s geography!

Deaths from war on drugs have increased rapidly since 2006

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Jan 262011
 

The Mexican Government recently released data on all the deaths in Mexico linked to drug wars for the period December 2006, when the drug wars started, through December 2010. The data include deaths of drug cartel members, law enforcement personnel, and innocent by-standers.  According to the data, 34,612 were killed in Mexico during this four year span, with 2010 being by far the most violent year with 15,273 deaths, 44% of the four year total. The 2010 total was 59% higher than 2009.

The graph below shows how rapidly the number of deaths resulting from the war on drugs has escalated. The crucial question now is, “Will drug war deaths continue to accelerate rapidly in 2011?”

Drug war deaths, 2007-2010

Not surprisingly, Chihuahua, led all other states with 10,135 deaths during the four year period, almost 30% of the total. In 2010 alone 4,427 were killed in Chihuahua, up 32% from 2009. This is a large one year acceleration in violence, but only about half the national increase of 59%. Most of the deaths in Chihuahua were in Ciudad Juarez, with 6,637, and Chihuahua City with 1,415. A later post in this mini-series will investigate drug war deaths in Mexico’s major cities. The map below shows the total number of deaths state-by-state for the period December 2006-December 2010.

Map of total drug war deaths 2007-2010
Map of total drug war deaths, December 2006-December 2010

As can be seen from the map, other states with very large numbers of deaths were Sinaloa (4,387 deaths, up 71% in 2010), Guerrero (2,736, up 29%), and Baja California (2,019 – 1,667 in Tijuana). Next came Durango (1,892 deaths), Michoacán (1,751, down 12%), State of Mexico (1,538), Tamaulipas (1,475), and Sonora, (1,258).

Tamaulipas burst onto the drug war scene in 2010 with 1,209 deaths in 2010 compared to “only” 90 in 2009, an increase of 1243%. The state with the greatest increase was San Luis Potosí which went from 8 deaths in 2009 to 135 in 2010, an increase of 1588%. The figure for 2010 alone was 72% of the four year total. Other states experiencing extremely rapid increases were Nayarit (919%) and Baja California Sur (900%), and Nuevo León (454%).

States with over 1,000 drug war deaths are all located in northern or western Mexico except for the centrally located State of Mexico, and perhaps Guerrero which might be considered a southern state.

At the other end of the spectrum, the states recording the fewest deaths during the four year period were Tlaxcala (13 deaths), Baja California Sur (19), Yucatán (26), Campeche (31) and Querétaro (37). While these were the least affected by drug war violence, the number of deaths in these states was still significant. During 2009 and 2010, Yucatán had only three deaths while Tlaxcala had ten and Baja California Sur had 11.

Related posts about the geography of drug trafficking and drug cartels in Mexico:

Geo-Mexico: the geography and dynamics of modern Mexico discusses drug trafficking in several chapters.  A text box on page 148 looks at drug trafficking business and efforts to control it.  Buy your copy today to have a handy reference guide to all major aspects of Mexico’s geography!

Mexican drug traffickers expand their influence to Central America

 Mexico's geography in the Press  Comments Off on Mexican drug traffickers expand their influence to Central America
Jan 182011
 

According to an article by Nacha Cattan in The Christian Science Monitor, one of Mexico’s most violent drug gangs, the Zetas, have now expanded into Central America. It is yet another instance of the shifting allegiances which require another redrawing of the “map” showing the cartels’ competing and partially overlapping spheres of influence.

The Zetas started out in the 1990s as a group of ex-military strong-arm enforcers who had previously worked exclusively for Mexico’s Gulf Cartel. The Zetas rapidly established a reputation for extreme brutality, leaving severed heads as a sign of what they would do to anyone who opposed them. By the start of 2010, the Zetas had grown into an independent force controlling ever-increasing areas of north-eastern, central and western Mexico. They were pushed further west and south by an unlikely coalition of the Sinaloa cartel, the Gulf cartel and La Familia Michoacana, known as the New Federation. The Zetas have not limited themselves to drug trafficking, but have gradually extended their field of operations into many kinds of organized crime, especially kidnapping, extortion and the sex trade.

Now it seems that the Zetas have garnered support in Central America, where they have used local former military agents to keep their brand of discipline as they snare poverty-stricken youth into their organization. In Guatemala, the Zetas accused Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom of accepting millions of dollars in drug money, and threatened a sharp rise in civilian casualties if authorities continued to target their activities.

Honduras and El Salvador are also reported to house Zeta cells. This has prompted Mexico and several Central American countries to discuss forming anti-cartel alliances. The links between the Zeta cells in Central America and the hard-line Zeta forces in Mexico remain unclear. While some analysts claim the Zetas move to the south is because of successful law enforcement efforts in Mexico, others suggest that the Zetas are expanding in order to exert complete control over supply routes that originate or cross Central America.

Related posts about drug cartels in Mexico:

Ciudad Juárez faces economic fallout from the effects of the war on drugs

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Jan 142011
 

Ciudad Juárez (2010 population: 1.3 million) is regularly in the news for all the wrong reasons. Many factors have combined to increase the insecurity (economic and social) of the city in recent years. They include:

  • the 2008-2010 recession in the USA
  • the ready availability of guns, mainly introduced illegally into Mexico from the USA
  • violence associated with the Juárez cartel in its efforts to control this international drug-smuggling gateway
  • “fund-raising” by the Juárez cartel, which includes the payment of protection money by local businesses, as many as 50% of which are thought to comply with cartel demands
  • violence between members of competing drug gangs
Poster advertising event in Plaza de las Americas, Cd. Juárez

Poster advertising event in Plaza de las Americas, Cd. Juárez

One particular commercial zone has been particularly badly hit. The Pronaf (Programa Nacional de la Frontera) zone is a commercial area in the northern part of Ciudad Juárez, centered on the Plaza de las Americas shopping center, immediately south of the Córdova-Américas International Bridge. The zone offers a mix of restaurants, stores, nightclubs, money exchange outlets, pharmacies and dental offices and even a museum. The customers for the businesses in this area are mainly US tourists and the many daily commuters across the border.

The result of increased levels of violence and unrest is that an estimated 60% of the 400 or so businesses that were open prior to 2008 in the Pronaf zone have now closed. This has caused a large number of job losses, exacerbating the economic difficulties already faced by hundreds of families.

Map of Pronaf zone

Related post about drug cartels in Mexico

Chapters 21 and 22 of Geo-Mexico: the geography and dynamics of modern Mexico analyze Mexico’s 500-year transition to an urban society and the internal geography of Mexico’s cities. Chapter 23 looks at urban issues, problems and trends. An overview of the geography of drug trafficking in Mexico forms part of chapter 20. To preview more parts of the book, click here and use amazon.com’s “Look Inside” feature; buy your copy today!

On-going changes in the migration landscape of Tijuana, Baja California

 Mexico's geography in the Press  Comments Off on On-going changes in the migration landscape of Tijuana, Baja California
Jan 012011
 

An interesting recent Salem-News.com article summarizes the effects on the migration landscape of the city of Tijuana, Baja California, of the USA’s imposition of tighter border controls, including walls, fences and helicopter patrols.

There is no question that the economic downturn since 2008 and toughened border controls have reduced the number of migrants entering the USA. However, this has channeled the most determined would-be migrants into more challenging (and often more dangerous) options. It has also pushed the costs up. Twenty years ago, a few hundred dollars was probably sufficient to enlist the help of a “pollero” to cross the border undetected. Today, border gangs want several thousand dollars from each undocumented migrant who seeks their assistance.

Three favored options for crossing the border:

  • pay a smuggling gang $2,000 – $3,000 for a trip across the desert or mountains between Mexicali and Arizona.
  • pay up to $7,000 for a trip through one of the narco-tunnels (used mainly by drug smugglers)
  • pay up to $8,000 for a place on a high-speed boat leaving from Rosarito Beach and landing somewhere on the California coastline
  • the alternative is a dangerous solo hike across desert or mountains, through areas where many migrants have lost their lives.

Border security changes have had some major effects on Tijuana:

  • many migrants are unable to cross, swelling the numbers of poorly skilled workers in the Tijuana workforce. With insufficient formal sector jobs for all these workers, many enter the murky worlds of pornography, drug trafficking and the sex trade.
  • those unable to migrate tend to live in Tijuana’s lowest-income neighborhoods such as Valle Verde, Obrera, Lomas Taurinas, La Esperanza, El Niño and La Morita, which are growing very rapidly
  • more power has been gained by the organized gangs of traffickers, since they are the only ones with the resources to help undocumented migrants attempt to cross the border

Previous posts related to Mexican migrants in the USA:

Migration between Mexico and the USA is the focus of chapter 25 of Geo-Mexico: the geography and dynamics of modern Mexico. Ask your library to buy a copy of this handy reference guide to all aspects of Mexico’s geography today! Better yet, order your own copy…

The nondescript city of Zitácuaro, Michoacán, is the unhappy star of a New Yorker article

 Mexico's geography in the Press  Comments Off on The nondescript city of Zitácuaro, Michoacán, is the unhappy star of a New Yorker article
Nov 132010
 

The city of Zitácuaro in the state of Michoacán had played an important part in Mexican history (hence its full official name of Heróica Zitácuaro) but was largely ignored by tourists until the early 1980s. Things changed, and tourists started coming, when the locations of the Monarch butterfly overwintering sites were first published. The Monarchs had been undertaking their amazing annual migration from Canada and the USA to the rugged mountains close to Zitácuaro for hundreds, possibly thousands of years, but it was only in the early 1980s when articles in newspapers and science journals first provided locational details.

The Monarch butterflies have since become one of the major ecotourist attractions in this part of Mexico. On a single day in February, more than 5,000 tourists enter the main Monarch reserve El Rosario, accessed from either Angangueo or Ocampo, about 40 minutes driving time from Zitácuaro. Hotels in this area have done well out of the annual November-March “butterfly season”. Indeed, the demand led to the construction of several new hotels in the area, some of them more than large enough to handle tourist groups arriving by the coachload.

In 1980, I began leading regular fieldtrips to Zitácuaro and its surrounds, the major attractions being wonderful scenery and an interesting mix of settlement types, covering everything from 4-hut hamlets to the medium-sized city of Zitácuaro, which had a population at the time of about 100,000.  Over the years, I’ve watched Zitácuaro grow into a much larger city. When the bypass was first built, and federal Highway 15 rerouted around the town instead of along Avenida Revolución, it was ignored by most motorists, who preferred to drive through the city, often stopping for gas or food before continuing their journey. Within a few years, services had begun to spring up, as if by magic, alongside the bypass. Today, the city has spread well beyond the confines of the bypass.

In recent years, violence related to drug trafficking has reached the city. This is perhaps somewhat surprising, given its location far from the USA border, and far from the traditional territories of the main drug cartels. But, as we saw in an earlier post (The geography of drug trafficking in Mexico),  Zitácuaro is very close to the edge of the “territories in dispute” immediately to the west of Mexico City. Violence in these areas is growing as rival groups seek to control the lucrative drug trade. The La Familia crime group is responsible for most drug-related violence in Michoacán.

An article in the New Yorker earlier this year described in detail how La Familia has increasingly threatened the rule of law in  Zitácuaro. The article serves as a good introduction to how an ordinary Mexican city – in this case Zitácuaro – can be dramatically changed by a committed and ruthless criminal group.

An overview of the geography of drug trafficking in Mexico forms part of chapter 20 of Geo-Mexico: the geography and dynamics of modern Mexico. Buy your copy today!

Related post about drug cartels in Mexico:

Divine sage, the Philippines’ unwanted import from Mexico

 Mexico's geography in the Press  2 Responses »
Sep 092010
 

In two previous posts, we examined the historical connections between Mexico and the Philippines.

A news story (on mb.com.ph) a few months ago alerted us to another, much more recent link between the two countries.

The Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) claims that a Mexican herb poses a significant public health risk. According to the PDEA, Salvia divinorum, which is hallucinogenic when sun-dried leaves are chewed, sniffed or smoked, has been found growing wild in the Teachers Village in Quezon City. The plant is a member of the mint family and has a distinctive square stem. It is not known how or when it was introduced into the Philippines.

It is endemic to the remote region of the Sierra Mazateca in the northern part of the state of Oaxaca, Mexico. The plant grows in the warm, damp tropical evergreen and cloud forests at elevations between 300 and 1800 meters (1000 to 6000 feet). Biologists remain uncertain whether the plant is a truly natural plant or whether it is actually a hybrid (a cross between two or more distinct plant species) or cultigen (a plant that has been deliberately altered or selected by humans). It is commonly known in Mexico as divine sage, and the local Mazatec indigenous group has a long tradition of employing the plant in spiritual healing ceremonies.

The active constituent of Salvia divinorum is known as salvinorin A. Wikipedia’s entry on divine sage claims that “By mass, salvinorin A is the most potent naturally-occurring psychoactive compound known.”

We are not sure why it is in the interests of the PDEA to offer helpful tips for anyone thinking of growing and using this particular plant, but a PDEA spokesperson did just that, describing the plant as being somewhat similar to cannabis (marijuana), but easier to grow, since it can be propagated via stem cuttings. In addition, “The addictive effect of the said plant will last long if the leaves of the plant will be spread on a person’s gums rather than sniffing or puffing it like a cigarette. They say it gives you an uncontrollable laugh trip because the user will see the people as if they were caricatures or cartoons.” At least the final part of that quote appears to be hearsay and probably not admissible if introduced into a courtroom!

Despite its known hallucinogenic qualities, the cultivation and possession of divine sage remain legal in almost every country around the world. In the USA, only certain states have criminalized the plant. Click here for a webpage which provides more details of divine sage’s legal situation in particular countries and US states.

In the Philippines, the PDEA is reported to be collecting further evidence prior to recommending whether or not owning the plant should be made illegal. Sounds like it could be a fun job if you can get it!

Divine sage is the latest link in the 450-year-long history of close connections between Mexico and the Philippines.

Mexico’s links with other countries are discussed in chapter 20 of Geo-Mexico: the geography and dynamics of modern Mexico. Ask your library to buy a copy of this handy reference guide to all aspects of Mexico’s geography today! Better yet, order your own copy…

Mexico’s national interests in the fight against drugs

 Mexico's geography in the Press  Comments Off on Mexico’s national interests in the fight against drugs
May 062010
 

The following paragraphs come from a Stratfor Geopolitical Intelligence Report about Mexico’s fight against the drug cartels, Mexico and the Failed State Revisited, by George Friedman, published on 6 April 2010. The link above is to the full text of the report.

The Drug War and Mexican National Interests

From Mexico’s point of view, interrupting the flow of drugs to the United States is not clearly in the national interest or in that of the economic elite. Observers often dwell on the warfare between smuggling organizations in the northern borderland but rarely on the flow of American money into Mexico. Certainly, that money could corrupt the Mexican state, but it also behaves as money does. It is accumulated and invested, where it generates wealth and jobs.

For the Mexican government to become willing to shut off this flow of money, the violence would have to become far more geographically widespread. And given the difficulty of ending the traffic anyway — and that many in the state security and military apparatus benefit from it — an obvious conclusion can be drawn: Namely, it is difficult to foresee scenarios in which the Mexican government could or would stop the drug trade. Instead, Mexico will accept both the pain and the benefits of the drug trade.

Mexico’s policy is consistent: It makes every effort to appear to be stopping the drug trade so that it will not be accused of supporting it. The government does not object to disrupting one or more of the smuggling groups, so long as the aggregate inflow of cash does not materially decline. It demonstrates to the United States efforts (albeit inadequate) to tackle the trade, while pointing out very real problems with its military and security apparatus and with its officials in Mexico City. It simultaneously points to the United States as the cause of the problem, given Washington’s failure to control demand or to reduce prices by legalization. And if massive amounts of money pour into Mexico as a result of this U.S. failure, Mexico is not going to refuse it.

The problem with the Mexican military or police is not lack of training or equipment. It is not a lack of leadership. These may be problems, but they are only problems if they interfere with implementing Mexican national policy. The problem is that these forces are personally unmotivated to take the risks needed to be effective because they benefit more from being ineffective. This isn’t incompetence but a rational national policy.

Moreover, Mexico has deep historic grievances toward the United States dating back to the Mexican-American War. These have been exacerbated by U.S. immigration policy that the Mexicans see both as insulting and as a threat to their policy of exporting surplus labor north. There is thus no desire to solve the Americans’ problem. Certainly, there are individuals in the Mexican government who wish to stop the smuggling and the inflow of billions of dollars. They will try. But they will not succeed, as too much is at stake. One must ignore public statements and earnest private assurances and instead observe the facts on the ground to understand what’s really going on.

“This report is republished with permission of STRATFOR” © Copyright 2010 STRATFOR.

An overview of the geography of drug trafficking in Mexico forms part of chapter 20 of Geo-Mexico: the geography and dynamics of modern Mexico. Buy your copy today!

Related articles in this mini-series:

The economic benefits to Mexico of the drugs trade

 Mexico's geography in the Press  Comments Off on The economic benefits to Mexico of the drugs trade
May 032010
 

The economics of the drug trade

The amount of money pouring into Mexico annually is stunning. It is estimated to be about $35 billion to $40 billion each year. The massive profit margins involved make these sums even more significant. Assume that the manufacturing sector produces revenues of $40 billion a year through exports. Assuming a generous 10 percent profit margin, actual profits would be $4 billion a year. In the case of narcotics, however, profit margins are conservatively estimated to stand at around 80 percent. The net from $40 billion would be $32 billion; to produce equivalent income in manufacturing, exports would have to total $320 billion.

In estimating the impact of drug money on Mexico, it must therefore be borne in mind that drugs cannot be compared to any conventional export. The drug trade’s tremendously high profit margins mean its total impact on Mexico vastly outstrips even the estimated total sales, even if the margins shifted substantially.

On the whole, Mexico is a tremendous beneficiary of the drug trade. Even if some of the profits are invested overseas, the pool of remaining money flowing into Mexico creates tremendous liquidity in the Mexican economy at a time of global recession. It is difficult to trace where the drug money is going, which follows from its illegality. Certainly, drug dealers would want their money in a jurisdiction where it could not be easily seized even if tracked. U.S. asset seizure laws for drug trafficking make the United States an unlikely haven. Though money clearly flows out of Mexico, the ability of the smugglers to influence the behavior of the Mexican government by investing some of it makes Mexico a likely destination for a substantial portion of such funds.

The money does not, however, flow back into the hands of the gunmen shooting it out on the border; even their bosses couldn’t manage funds of that magnitude. And while money can be — and often is — baled up and hidden, the value of money is in its use. As with illegal money everywhere, the goal is to wash it and invest it in legitimate enterprises where it can produce more money. That means it has to enter the economy through legitimate institutions — banks and other financial entities — and then be redeployed into the economy. This is no different from the American Mafia’s practice during and after Prohibition.

The paragraphs above are taken from a Stratfor Geopolitical Intelligence Report about Mexico’s fight against the drug cartels, Mexico and the Failed State Revisited, by George Friedman, published on 6 April 2010.

“This report is republished with permission of STRATFOR” © Copyright 2010 STRATFOR.

An overview of the geography of drug trafficking in Mexico forms part of chapter 20 of Geo-Mexico: the geography and dynamics of modern Mexico. Buy your copy today!

Related articles in this mini-series:

Mexico’s export trade in drugs

 Mexico's geography in the Press  Comments Off on Mexico’s export trade in drugs
Apr 282010
 

These paragraphs come from a Stratfor Global Security and Intelligence Report by Fred Burton and Ben West, When the Mexican Drug Trade Hits the Border, published 15 April 2009 (republished with permission of STRATFOR).

Though the drug trade as a whole is highly complex, the underlying concept is as simple as getting narcotics from South America to the consuming markets — chief among them the United States, which is the world’s largest drug market. Traffickers use Central America and Mexico as a pipeline to move their goods north. The objective of the Latin American smuggler is to get as much tonnage as possible from Colombia, Peru and Bolivia to the lucrative American market and avoid interdictions by authorities along the way.

However, as narcotic shipments near the U.S.-Mexican border, wholesale trafficking turns into the more micro process of retail distribution. In southern Mexico, drug traffickers move product north in bulk, but as shipments cross the U.S. border, wholesale shipments are broken down into smaller parcels in order to hedge against interdiction and prepare the product for the end user. One way to think about the difference in tactics between trafficking drugs in Central America and Mexico and distributing drugs in the United States is to imagine a company like UPS or FedEx. Shipping air cargo from, say, New York to Los Angeles requires different resources than delivering packages to individual homes in southern California. Several tons of freight from the New York area can be quickly flown to the Los Angeles area. But as the cargo gets closer to its final destination, it is broken up into smaller loads that are shipped via tractor trailer to distribution centers around the region, and finally divided further into discrete packages carried in parcel trucks to individual homes.

As products move through the supply chain, they require more specific handling and detailed knowledge of an area, which requires more manpower. The same, more or less, can be said for drug shipments. This can be seen in interdiction reports. When narcotics are intercepted traversing South America into Mexico, they can be measured in tons; as they cross the border into the United States, seizures are reported in kilograms; and by the time products are picked up on the streets of U.S. cities, the narcotics have been divided into packages measured in grams. To reflect this difference, we will refer to the movement of drugs south of the border as trafficking and the movement of drugs north of the border as distributing.

As narcotics approach the border, law enforcement scrutiny and the risk of interdiction also increase, so drug traffickers have to be creative when it comes to moving their products. The constant game of cat-and-mouse makes drug trafficking a very dynamic business, with tactics and specific routes constantly changing to take advantage of any angle that presents itself.

The only certainties are that drugs and people will move from south to north, and that money and weapons will move from north to south. But the specific nature and corridors of those movements are constantly in flux as traffickers innovate in their attempts to stay ahead of the police in a very Darwinian environment. The traffickers employ all forms of movement imaginable, including:

  • Tunneling under border fences into safe houses on the U.S. side.
  • Traversing the desert on foot with 50-pound packs of narcotics. (Dirt bikes, ATVs and pack mules are also used.)
  • Driving across the border by fording the Rio Grande, using ramps to get over fences, cutting through fences or driving through open areas.
  • Using densely vegetated portions of the riverbank as dead drops.
  • Floating narcotics across isolated stretches of the river.
  • Flying small aircraft near the ground to avoid radar.
  • Concealing narcotics in private vehicles, personal possessions and in or on the bodies of persons who are crossing legally at ports of entry.
  • Bribing border officials in order to pass through checkpoints.
  • Hiding narcotics on cross-border trains.
  • Hiding narcotics in tractor trailers carrying otherwise legitimate loads.
  • Using boats along the Gulf coast.
  • Using human “mules” to smuggle narcotics aboard commercial aircraft in their luggage or bodies.
  • Shipping narcotics via mail or parcel service.

These methods are not mutually exclusive, and organizations may use any combination at the same time. New ways to move the product are constantly emerging.

“This report is republished with permission of STRATFOR” © Copyright 2010 STRATFOR.

An overview of the geography of drug trafficking in Mexico forms part of chapter 20 of Geo-Mexico: the geography and dynamics of modern Mexico. Buy your copy today!

Related articles in this mini-series:

The geography of drug trafficking in Mexico

 Maps, Mexico's geography in the Press  Comments Off on The geography of drug trafficking in Mexico
Apr 242010
 

This article dates back to 2010. For updates, see:

This map of drug cartel territories and drug trafficking and export routes comes from a Stratfor Global Security and Intelligence Report by Fred Burton and Ben West, When the Mexican Drug Trade Hits the Border, published 15 April 2009.

Map of Cartel Territories. Copyright Stratfor. Click map for enlarged version.

Click here to see map in its original context. Map © Copyright 2008 Strategic Forecasting Inc, STRATFOR www.stratfor.com. This map is republished with permission of STRATFOR.

The map shows the major routes for Mexico’s imports, transport and exports of drugs.  The boundaries between cartel territories are in a constant state of flux as rival cartels fight to enlarge their territories.

Perhaps the single biggest shift in the geography of drug trafficking in Mexico in recent decades has been that involving drugs originating in Colombia. Prior to the 1980s, Colombian drugs reached the US and Canada either direct or via the Caribbean. During the 1980s, as US pressure mounted on these routes, Colombian cartels shifted their supply routes to Mexico, where they needed the help of Mexican gangs. These gangs rapidly became better organized and have become the powerful Mexican cartels operating today.

Mexico’s on-going “war” against drugs cartels has had most success so far against the Gulf cartel and the Zetas, who started life as the enforcing arm of the Gulf cartel. On the other hand, the influence of the Sinaloa cartel appears to be spreading. For an analysis of the Gulf cartel, including the effects of globalization on its operations, see Stephanie Brophy’s “Mexico Cartels, corruption and cocaine: A profile of the Gulf cartel” (Global Crime, vol. 9, #3, August 2008, pp 248-261)

This article dates back to 2010. For updates, see:

An overview of the geography of drug trafficking in Mexico forms part of chapter 20 of Geo-Mexico: the geography and dynamics of modern Mexico. Buy your copy today!

Related articles in this mini-series:

The background to Mexico’s fight against the drug cartels

 Mexico's geography in the Press  Comments Off on The background to Mexico’s fight against the drug cartels
Apr 202010
 

The following paragraphs come from a Stratfor Geopolitical Intelligence Report about Mexico’s fight against the drug cartels, Mexico and the Failed State Revisited, by George Friedman, published on 6 April 2010. The link above is to the full text of the report.

Mexico’s Core Problem

Let’s begin by understanding the core problem. The United States consumes vast amounts of narcotics, which, while illegal there, make their way in abundance. Narcotics derive from low-cost agricultural products that become consumable with minimal processing. With its long, shared border with the United States, Mexico has become a major grower, processor and exporter of narcotics. Because the drugs are illegal and thus outside normal market processes, their price is determined by their illegality rather than by the cost of production. This means extraordinary profits can be made by moving narcotics from the Mexican side of the border to markets on the other side.

Whoever controls the supply chain from the fields to the processing facilities and, above all, across the border, will make enormous amounts of money. Various Mexican organizations — labeled cartels, although they do not truly function as such, since real cartels involve at least a degree of cooperation among producers, not open warfare — vie for this business. These are competing businesses, each with its own competing supply chain.

Typically, competition among businesses involves lowering prices and increasing quality. This would produce small, incremental shifts in profits on the whole while dramatically reducing prices. An increased market share would compensate for lower prices. Similarly, lawsuits are the normal solution to unfair competition. But neither is the case with regard to illegal goods.

The surest way to increase smuggling profits is not through market mechanisms but by taking over competitors’ supply chains. Given the profit margins involved, persons wanting to control drug supply chains would be irrational to buy, since the lower-cost solution would be to take control of these supply chains by force. Thus, each smuggling organization has an attached paramilitary organization designed to protect its own supply chain and to seize its competitors’ supply chains.

The result is ongoing warfare between competing organizations. Given the amount of money being made in delivering their product to American cities, these paramilitary organizations are well-armed, well-led and well-motivated. Membership in such paramilitary groups offers impoverished young men extraordinary opportunities for making money, far greater than would be available to them in legitimate activities.

The raging war in Mexico derives logically from the existence of markets for narcotics in the United States; the low cost of the materials and processes required to produce these products; and the extraordinarily favorable economics of moving narcotics across the border. This warfare is concentrated on the Mexican side of the border. But from the Mexican point of view, this warfare does not fundamentally threaten Mexico’s interests.

(to be continued) “This report is republished with permission of STRATFOR” © Copyright 2010 STRATFOR.

An overview of the geography of drug trafficking in Mexico forms part of chapter 20 of Geo-Mexico: the geography and dynamics of modern Mexico. Buy your copy today!

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