What If you're being appointed as a head of national task force to combat drug war in Mexico. What would you do?
(You can do whatever you 'want' about it) Thank you.
Whoooooo!!!! Hi Anon!!
Boy, is that a complicated question! Thanks for the question. It’s a good one.
Well….that is a very complicated and nuanced answer and honestly I don’t know how much I’d be able to do because it’s not about doing what I want.
It’s not as simple as the show Narcos portrays where you have a group of bad guys or criminals and we’re the cops to come in and arrest them, no. Even the show demonstrates (ineffectively, I might add) that the so-called war on drugs is just a cover/bullshit to cover the US’s dealings for political leverage and the safekeeping of the USA’s interests in foreign soil. Hell, the CIA protected Pablo Escobar and helped him gain power and wealth, they extorted the Mexicans into providing drugs, money and moving weapons, and they armed the CJNG (this is all confirmed by cartel members, CIA whistleblowers and DOD reports, btw).
It would take an international effort involving geopolitical maneuvering/cooperation to try to even create an impact to the drug cartels in Mexico or even Colombia for that matter. Because a lot of countries have vested interests in these cartels existing and generating profits and contributing to economies. And a national task force ain’t gonna cut it.
First off, we’d need to cripple the cartels and cut off their resources. So that would involved an international ban and elimination of the use of cryptocurrency. Why? Because that’s how they mainly launder their money in an effectively traceless way. Actually, crypto is mainly used to fund a lot of criminal activity (there’s a reason why Jeffrey Epstein was an early investor in crypto). We’d also have to go through all of their government assets or resources (and I’m not just talking about the Mexican government) that would include getting most of Latin America and Asia to cooperate and having the USA effectively cut them off and stop giving them weapons, protection and resources.
You’d have to go through the entire Mexican government body with a team of forensic accountants and investigate them just to see who’s on the narco payroll (which will be effectively most if not all of them). Which makes sense because there have been members of the Mexican government involved in narco trafficking for almost a century. You’d also have to do this with all Mexico’s biggest companies, legitimate or not. Because I can assure you, that if you’re rich in Mexico, your money is somehow tied to narco trafficking (directly or indirectly it’s still money moving in their economy).
You’d essentially have to dismantle an entire international network and have to have cooperation from each country. So you’d need cooperation from the Swiss government and international bank accounts located in tax havens, etc.
And this is just to hit their money. We’d also need to tackle their access to weapons (which I doubt the US will stop). We’d also need to cut off their supply chains so they can’t get the chemicals needed to make the narcotics (which wouldn’t do much, but they wouldn’t be able to produce fentanyl without the needed chemicals. I’d force them back to relying more on more natural narcotics like opium and marihuana and cocaine as sources of income besides the other ones.
That’s another thing. The cartels have diversified their revenue streams, so most of their money doesn’t come from narcotics. It comes from racketeering schemes, kidnappings, human trafficking, sex trafficking, manual unpaid labor, etc. You’d also need systemic change. You’d also have to lift millions of Mexicans from poverty and address both the social and economic problems that the cartels have created. Like government distrust, extreme poverty, lack of education and social mobility, etc.
We also have to consider the long term consequences of eliminating drug/cartel money from both the US and Mexican economies. And we’d also have to prepare for the resulting economic collapse, because these people are not like Pablo who put money in caletas. They’re much more sophisticated and actively invest and inject their money in local and foreign economies. In fact, an estimated 20% of Sinaloa’s GDP is narco money. And that’s just Sinaloa, never mind the rest of Mexico, Latin America and the USA. Some narcos estimate that a complete loss of drug money would cause hyperinflation and result in an economic collapse of the US economy. So there’s that to consider as well.
The reason why they caught Pablo is because at the end, he was surrounded, and his access to money and resources were cut off. It’s even said that the Pepes are the ones that actually killed him by infiltrating the op that was hunting him. It’s a theory that goes to show that Pablo had enemies everywhere and didn’t have money (because he didn’t manage his money well and had it in caletas).
This isn’t as simple as coming into Mexico with military force. For one thing, the cartels are well armed, some say they’d have the government outgunned. And implementing the kingpin strategy as the US has done so far, has been a historical and abject failure. Even Chapo and Mayo have said that if they’re taken out, they’ll just get replaced by someone else and then operations will keep going. Because removing the head has a hydra effect where the cartel will go into civil war and then splinter and create several cartels who will fight for territory and make your country into a war zone.
I could go on, but all this to say a national task force ain’t gonna do shit. It’d be an impossible task. If anything, the cartels would just threaten me or bribe me into cooperating.
Anyway, sorry for my long rant and I hope my answer made sense. Even a little bit.
