convergence

The Illicit Supply Chain
routes (both cash and product) between rival cartels. 38 Any progress law enforcement agencies
make in targeting smuggling routes typically leads to increased competition—usually violent—among
illicit networks for control over the remaining routes. Mexican illicit networks
increasingly resort to military tactics, utilizing heavy weaponry such as sniper rifles, grenades,
and rocket-propelled grenades in attacks on rival cartel members as well as government and
law enforcement officials. 39
Government and law enforcement officials are also increasingly being targeted in retaliatory
killings. For example, in June 2009, 12 federal police agents were tortured and killed and
their bodies dumped in retaliation after the Mexican police arrested a high-ranking member of
a cartel. 40 Such activities demonstrate the lengths that illicit networks are willing to go to protect
their market interests. When avoiding government detection is no longer an option, illicit
networks openly challenge government efforts to contain them, as is occurring in Mexico today.
Violence is not the only tactic utilized by Mexico illicit networks to protect the effectiveness
of the supply chain. Another way they ensure their activities are successful is infiltrating
and corrupting the government itself. Much of this corruption is still enforced by violence.
Many customs agents may collaborate with these networks at the border out of fear for their
safety. Network agents have also succeeded in infiltrating local law enforcement units. In 2010,
the Mexican government dismissed 3,200 members of its police force (10 percent of the total)
due to corruption-related concerns. 41 The city of Torreon fired 1,200 police officers in 2010
once it was discovered that the city’s entire force had been infiltrated by cartels. According to
Mayor Eduardo Olmos, cartel members “bribed, threatened and recruited [the police] and
were able to use their radios, vehicles, weapons, bulletproof vests, everything. . . . The police
relaxed their ethics and discipline and just gave in. In the end they weren’t working for them.
They were them.” 42 The more powerful Mexican illicit networks have expanded their scope
beyond drug trafficking. In recent years, cartels have increasingly engaged in human smuggling
and trafficking, prostitution, and kidnapping. Such activities allow illicit networks not only
to further utilize their existing drug trafficking supply chain but also to further increase their
political influence as well as their profits.
U.S. and Mexican law enforcement officials have observed that drug cartels are increasingly
moving into human-smuggling operations, forcing immigrants to act as “mules” to transport
drugs and cash proceeds across the border. 43 According to the United Nations Office
on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) 2010 transnational crime threat assessment report, 90
percent of migrants who are smuggled into the United States have the help of a professional
smuggler. 44 While data are not available regarding the percentage of these migrants who are
aided by cartels, the report notes that, since cartels control the majority of Mexican border
towns, there is the high likelihood that a significant portion of these migrants must rely on
the cartels to cross the border. Working with cartels, however, does not come without a price.
Many illicit networks take advantage of the vulnerability of migrants by forcing them to work
as a part of the drug-trafficking network. Even migrants who do not directly choose to work
with the cartels may still find themselves the victims of cartel brutality. Approximately 18,000
migrants are kidnapped each year with the aim of forcing them into servitude or extorting
ransom payments from relatives. 45 When migrants do not comply with the cartels, they are
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