Fausta's Blog

American and Latin American Politics, Society, and Culture

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Colombia: Coca production continues to rise

I was posting about this in July last year, and even then it was a two-year trend:

While the FARC peace travesty rolls right along, coca cultivation has surged over the past two years as growers are offered greater incentives at lower risk.

Now the Acreage under coca cultivation set to surpass levels before a U.S.-sponsored eradication program began (emphasis added),

The surge in the coca crop has come since 2013, as the U.S. was forced to reduce and ultimately end spraying from crop dusters because of health concerns over the use of a toxic defoliant and the Colombian government’s worries that the program was turning many rural residents against the state as it was negotiating a peace deal with Marxist rebels. On Tuesday, U.S. officials in Washington are expected to announce that coca is planted on about 695 square miles of land, or more than 10 times the area of the District of Columbia. The increase continues a rise in which planted acreage has more than doubled since its lowest point in 2012.

A year ago I also posted that Hezbollah was teaming up with Colombian cocaine lords due to Iran’s falling oil revenues.

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Mexico: Jalisco New Generation CJNG cartel expands into U.S.

InSight Crime reports,

American officials are reporting that the Jalisco Cartel – New Generation (CJNG) has expanded its trafficking operations in the United States, marking an important evolution in the modus operandi of the growing criminal organization.

As reported by Proceso, the CJNG has used its growing presence in Juárez to boost its participation in US markets for cocaine and heroin. This marks a change in direction for the group whose prominence in Mexico has risen sharply over the past five years, but whose international forays seemed to be mostly limited to trafficking to Europe.

The Proceso report squares with other recent indications from US authorities. In its 2016 National Drug Threat Assessment, published in November, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) reported that the CJNG was one of the six Mexican organizations with the greatest presence in the United States. It has set up distribution hubs in Los Angeles and Atlanta, and also operates in far-flung cities such as Miami, San Antonio, San Francisco, and even Roanoke, Virginia. The most recent assessment reflects an increased presence relative to prior DEA reports.

CJNG was founded in 2010 as an offshoot of the Sinaloa Cartel, distributing cocaine in Europe and, as InSight Crime points out, has a substantial operation in Asia.

In other Mexican cartel news, the manhunt for Gulf Cartel leader Julián “El Toro” (The Bull) Loisa Salinas has created infighting within the organization, leaving nine dead so far.

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Venezuela: US sanctions VP El Aissami over drug ties

U.S. Puts Venezuelan Vice President Tareck El Aissami on Sanctions List. Official, placed on Treasury’s kingpins list, allegedly aided drug traffickers (emphasis added)

Executive Vice President Tareck El Aissami and Venezuelan financier Samark Lopez were placed on the Office of Foreign Assets Control blacklist, the Treasury Department said in a statement Monday. The list freezes their assets in the U.S. and blocks U.S. companies and individuals from doing business with them.

Mr. El Aissami “facilitated shipments of narcotics from Venezuela,” while serving as Venezuela’s Interior Minister and then governor of the central Aragua state, said the statement. “He oversaw or partially owned narcotics shipments of over 1,000 kilograms from Venezuela on multiple occasions.”

For the Zetas, among others,

The Treasury department on Monday said Mr. El Aissami, as Interior Minister, was paid for using his control of Venezuelan air bases, ports and highways to facilitate drug shipments from Venezuela and Colombian druglords as well as Mexico’s Los Zetas drug cartel.

Alek Boyd has been reporting on El Aissami for years,

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El Chapo’s lawyers want more access

The court-appointed, taxpayer-paid federal defenders want more time with him, and raised a conflict of interest question:

Mexican Drug Lord Joaquín ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán’s Lawyers Ask for More Access. Since his extradition to U.S., he’s largely been in solitary confinement in a New York prison.

Adding to the complexity of the case, the government also raised concerns about Mr. Guzmán’s legal representation by the federal defenders, saying there was a potential conflict of interest because the defenders’ office has previously represented five potential witnesses with connections to Mr. Guzmán.

The judge appointed Matthew Fishbein, a partner at Manhattan law firm Debevoise & Plimpton LLP, to help Mr. Guzmán determine whether there is a conflict of interest.

Mexican authorities rushed El Chapo out of the country – likely before the customary negotiations that would normally take place in such a prominent case were completed (emphasis added):

Mr. Guzmán’s lawyers have indicated they may challenge the grounds for his extradition. The extradition proceedings in Mexico were not based on the charges in Brooklyn, and “it was assumed” he would be brought to California or Texas, his lawyers said. Before his removal to the U.S., neither he nor his lawyers in Mexico knew the extradition would occur, according to a court filing.

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Argentina to stop foreigners with criminal records from entering the country

Op-ed in Spain’s El País:

Argentina adopts anti-immigrant rhetoric over public safety fears. Macri administration pledges to stop foreigners with criminal records from entering the country

Argentina’s foreign population is 4.5%, and foreign inmates serving time represent 6% of the prison population. The figures do not look alarming. Yet the government is providing another set of data that focuses on federal penitentiaries, and points to foreigners as being responsible for the most serious crimes, particularly drug trafficking.

“The foreign national population in the custody of the Federal Penitentiary Service has grown over the last years to reach 21.35% of the total prison population in 2016. In crimes linked to drugs, 33% of the people in the custody of the Federal Penitentiary Service are foreigners.”

The op-ed talks of Argentina as an open country. It does not mention that the drug cartels have taken notice.

Last year the WSJ reported that Argentina is becoming an international narcotics hub as cocaine traffickers have been flying south into Argentina from Bolivia:

Argentina doesn’t produce cocaine, but its porous borders, roads, rivers and ports make it a good transit point. Low chances of prosecution also attract drug dealers, says Patricia Bullrich, Argentina’s security minister.

Since 1999, Argentina has successfully prosecuted only seven money-laundering cases, according to the U.S. State Department’s latest international narcotics report. That record has inspired traffickers from Colombia, Peru and Mexico to buy luxury homes and farmland—which can accommodate clandestine airstrips—to evade tougher controls farther north in South America and secure profitable southern supply routes, officials say.

As you may recall, back in 2008 I posted on how Mexican drug cartels can use Argentina as an entry (ephedrine/pseudoephedrine) and exit (cocaine) point, as the country became a hub for U.S. methamphetamine and European cocaine. By 2013, Argentina was believed to supply 70 tons of cocaine a year to Europe, a third of its annual consumption.



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Brazil: PCC hiring FARC

The stuff gets real: Brazil’s largest criminal organization, the PCC (Primeiro Comando da Capital – First Capital Command) is recruiting Colombian FARC members (emphasis added),

as it seeks heavy-weapons and other expertise to help expand its hold over Latin America’s drug trade, investigators and officials in both countries say.

Defense and foreign ministry officials from both nations are scheduled to meet Tuesday in the city of Manaus in the Amazon region to share information on how the Brazilian criminal organization, the First Capital Command or PCC, is working to hire guerrillas in Colombia, some of whom opted not to participate in peace talks in that country. Colombia’s government last year signed a peace pact with the Marxist rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, and most of its 6,000 fighters are now preparing to disarm.

The PCC wants to fight the Brazilian military, wipe out competition from other gangs, and deal directly with Colombian cocaine suppliers – whose coca production surged by 46% from 2014 to 2015.

The gang is seeking .50-caliber machine guns, which are capable of taking down helicopters and perforating bulletproof cars, as well as to enlist parts of the FARC’s network of seasoned fighters and expert bomb makers

Additionally, InSight Crime reports that the PCC is using Uruguay as a transit point for international drug trafficking operations in Africa and Europe, and operating in Paraguay and Bolivia. InSight Crime has noted that

PCC is capable of organizing drug trafficking operations and sending drug shipments abroad, as well as controlling shipments of marijuana and cocaine in both national and regional markets.

Italy’s ‘Ndrangheta mafia (which handles up to 80 percent of Italy-bound cocaine) is one of the PCC’s European partners.

Last week the Colombian government and the FARC announced a joint plan to fight against coca production.

Cross-posted at WoW! Magazine.

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Mexico: Peña Nieto and the Juarez cartel

In the flurry of news and criticism over the cancelled Peña Nieto visit, Ildefonso Ortiz and Brandon Darby remind us that the Juarez Cartel used shell companies to finance Peña Nieto’s presidential campaign; their article from March last year explains how,

The bombshell revelation was made this week by the independent news outlet Aristegui Noticias who claim that top officials of the Juarez Cartel financed thousands of cash cards that were handed out by Mexico’s Revolutionary Institutional Party (PRI) during the 2012 political campaign that resulted in the victory of Enrique Pena Nieto. According to the Mexican journalists, the cash cards were provided by a company called Monex. They were reported to be financed through a series of shell corporations by key players with the Juarez Cartel.     

Through a three part series, the Mexican news organization identified Rodolfo David “El Consul” Avila Cordero as a key figure in the financial scandal that implicates the leading figures in Mexico’s ruling party the Revolutionary Institutional Party (PRI).

Avila Cordero was arrested in 2005 in Mexico City in connection with the seizure of almost $750,000 in cash. At the time authorities had identified him as a top tier operative with the Juarez (Carrillo Fuente) Cartel who worked as their financial operator an a key figure in their connections with Colombian drug lords.  Avila Cordero had earned the nickname “The Consul” because of his links to high ranking officials within the Mexican government and acted as an ambassador of sorts, Aristegui Noticias reported.

Eight years after his arrest, Avila Cordero became a contractor for a government funded program called Crusade Against Hunger. Using a company called Conclave SA de CV and Prodasa SA de CV, Cordero was able to secure more than $396 million pesos or $25 million in government contracts through rigged bidding processes by government officials.

The Crusade Against Hunger is a pet project of Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto who claimed that with that program he would improve the quality of life for his people.

According to the investigation by the Mexican journalists, Conclave and Prodasa are shell companies that do not have real offices or staff.

Ortiz and Darby posted yesterday that

Mexico’s President Cancels White House Visit After Trump Hits CartelsMexican President Enrique Peña Nieto has cancelled his planned visit to the U.S. where he was expected to meet with President Donald J. Trump. The cancellation comes after Mexico’s government denounced Trump’s new border security measures aimed at interfering with the cash flow of the very Mexican cartels believed to have financed the current Mexican president’s campaign.

There’s room for discussion on whether or not the cancellation is directly related to this.

However, Peña Nieto’s approval ratings last week were at 11%. Every minute the media in the U.S. and in Mexico spend berating Trump and/or what Trump may or may not do is a minute they don’t spend examining the reasons why Mexico’s government has failed – and continues to fail – its own citizens.

Remember also that Peña Nieto’s popularity started its precipitous decline after the 2014 disappearance of the 43 Ayotzinapa students. Only the remains of one student have been found.

The Ayotzinapa massacre, not Donald Trump, is emblematic of Mexico’s failures.

Related:
Southern exposure: The costly border plan Mexico won’t discuss

UPDATE
Linked to by Maggie’s Farm. Thank you!

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Colombia: Gangs take over FARC coca production

At Panampost:
Colombia: Criminal Gangs Take Control of FARC Coca Production Regions

A report published by the 9fficial “Grupo de Monitoreo” (monitoring group) on the peace agreement between the Colombian government and FARC guerrillas warns of the intention of the Colombian Gaitanista Self-Defense Groups (ACG), an alliance between two criminal gangs known as “El Clan del Golfo” And “Clan Usuga,” to take control of the the Urabá area in Antioquia, a highly important coca-growing region, in order to expand cultivation, encourage desertion in the ranks of other armed groups, and become the overlords of the territories abandoned by the FARC, who will now be heading to so-called “pre-grouping zones” to await transitional justice.

Peasants of the sector say that the criminal gang is responsible for the kidnapping, torture, and murder of José Yeimer Cartagena on January 11, 2017, who was the vice president of the Campesino Association of Alto Sinú and who had led campaigns against the eradication of coca crops in the area.

At InSight Crime: Colombia Port Town in Bloody Battle Over Former FARC Turf

Illegal armed groups like the so-called Gaitanista Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (Autodefensas Gaitanistas de Colombia – AGC, also known as the “Urabeños“) and National Liberation Army (Ejército de Liberación Nacional – ELN) guerrillas are arriving in areas where rebels from the FARC‘s 8th and 29th Fronts, and the Daniel Aldana and Mariscal Antonio José de Sucre Mobile Columns, had previously operated. Local groups are also appearing, putting the civilian population at risk; this was seen recently in the mass displacement that occurred on January 5 in the Pital de Costa area, in the northern part of Tumaco.

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