-Caveat Lector- an excerpt from: Drug Politics David C. Jordan University of Oklahoma press©1999 Norman Publishing Division of the University ISBN 0-8061-3174-8 288 pps -- first edition -- In-print --[3a]-- --With the drugging of the general population, governing elites come to see themselves as a ruling class and not as public servants accountable to a public that believes in limits on private and public behavior. And, finally, as these unaccountable elites forge alliances with their counterparts in other countries, a transnational alliance of finance capital is facilitated, an alliance freed of democratic republican accountability. Borderless and unchecked capital is thus available for speculative assaults on states resisting the agendas of unaccountable money interests.-- Quite the interesting book. A bit of a view from an ivory tower, but all in all thought-provoking. It would have been a bit interesting if he had used Kwittney , Marshall, PD Scott, and Stitch in his sources. Highly recomended. A taste ----- CHAPTER 5 THE DEVELOPMENT AND SPREAD OF ORGANIZED CRIME Organized crime has spread with the internationalization of capitalism and the increase in global trade. Although it is not the only variable, organized crime plays a significant role in corrupting the state. Most observers are familiar with the problem of organized crime in large cities but do not consider it as having a statewide or international presence. Yet organized crime is embodied in modern and well-established international groups that infiltrate governments and financial institutions. The illegal activities of these groups extend beyond narcotics trafficking and money laundering. Organized crime, whether called a syndicate, mafia, or cartel, is at the root of "productive" criminality. It is an organization that manufactures or appropriates for markets both illicit and legitimate goods and services while seeking either the de facto or the de jure protection of portions of the government. This definition of organized crime draws on insights gained from numerous studies that demonstrate that its effective operation requires exploitation of the market and its cooperation with elements of the government. In his study of the traditional Sicilian mafia, Hermer Hess found that "The phenomenon of the traditional Sicilian mafia has combined in itself the characteristics of two types of crime: [those] of organized crime with those of repressive crime. In other words, those of an illegal enterprise for financial gain and profit with those of an illegal defense of econon-dc and political privilege."[1] Organized crime is intimately connected with people in the political structure who facilitate its activities. As authors Pierre Tremblay and Richard Kedzior note, "An admission that organized crime exists is an admission that political corruption exists and that power is exercised through patronage. On the other hand, the denial that organized crime exists may emanate from a conviction that patronage is no longer a part of the political process or that it will be harmful to admit that this is so. "[2] Organized crime's relationship with the government provides for political immunity from the law. The mafia or cartel boss operates at a midline between the upperworld and the underworld. Figure 4 illustrates a model of the relationship between upperworld and underworld mafia systems. In this model, the crime boss operates as a broker between local, regional, and national levels of the political system. Political connections in the upperworld protect the organization's production and distribution of goods and services while the organization's enforcement apparatus protects business in the underworld. Sometimes enforcement mechanisms of the underworld ally themselves with the upperworld against political opponents. A three-level hierarchy of power is evident in both the upperworld and the underworld. The boss is clearly number 1 with respect to the underworld but, depending on the nature of the political system, the boss may or may not be subordinate to a more powerful political figure in the upperworld. These relationships are fluid and dynamic. Organized crime may be part of the productive economy and the social system in that it depends on mass markets and exploits the level of social tolerance for its products. The fight for legalization only promotes the social acceptability of the activity. The evolution of organized crime in societies ranging from Japan and China to Italy and the United States indicates that struggles between the cartels are frequent and ongoing, as are the struggles between the political bosses. The conflicts between the underworld and the upperworld merge as the relationships between the mafias and politicians consolidate. This is occurring in Mexico and has been underway in Colombia since the early 1980s, as will be shown in later chapters. The corruption stemming from organized crime provides a substitute source of wealth and power for the institutionalized privileges the elites once held as a bureaucratic oligarchy. While authoritarian elites are able to manage organized crime, newly privatized economies provide insulation from electoral accountability. The former bureaucratic oligarchy becomes a ruling class that exploits and controls what is in effect a criminal capitalist class. The minimum definition of democracy, "procedural democracy," becomes the political formula by which the new ruling class justifies its rule to the rest of society and the international community. The criminal-political relationship progresses from the local and regional to the national level of politics. After consolidating at the local and state level, the criminal relationship advances to the international arena. If organized crime develops in the social context of economic demand for illicit goods and political corruption, then the globalization of markets and politics allows organized crime to flourish where international society is anarchical. As governments become dependent on criminal organizations for profits and the acquisition of arms and other sinews of state power, the international arena becomes a new haven for organized crime. In addition, corruption in the form of organized crime provides the authoritarian elite or bureaucratic oligarchy a means of gaining wealth and retaining power. An authoritarian elite in a democratic and privatizing economy may find organized crime useful for acquiring wealth and insulating itself from electoral accountability. An alleged transition from authoritarianism to democracy is frustrated when the former ruling elite continues to control the government as an elected class connected to the permanent government bureaucracy. In this way, the ruling elite remains largely independent of civil society, with a substantial part of that independence derived from exploiting and controlling organized crime. The role of organized crime in corrupting democracy goes beyond the authoritarian elites' cooperation to preserve their power in democratic transitions. Existing consolidated democracies may find elements of the elected establishment forging ties with organized crime in order to cushion the country from external economic shocks. These alliances protect sectors of the economy dependent on the financial benefits of organized crime. Society's support for a corrupt government may increase in situations where the income derived from the narcotics trade allows the government to pay its debts and provide much-needed social services. In this vicious circle then, the resources organized crime provides to the government assist elites to gain and maintain power. The subversive relationship between government and organized crime suggests that a state with democratic features may not in essence be an accountable and responsible political system. For a regime to be considered fully democratic, the electoral process must in practice maintain accountability. Where the governing elites rely on criminal oligarchs to finance and privatize state entities, the maintenance of accountability through the electoral process becomes questionable. This distrust of genuine democratic accountability is present for regimes in transition, such as Russia, as well as for long-term consolidated regimes, such as the United States. THE RUSSIAN MAFIA According to Stephen Handelman, an expert on Russian crime, organized crime in Russia long antedates the former Soviet Union. The criminal gangs of czarist times served as prototypes for the future Bolshevik organizations. Later, Stalin used gang leaders for his revolutionary activities and recruited some of them for his secret police. In the gulag system, gang members informed on political dissidents.[3] The Russian mafias were in some cases protected by the state to help keep the Soviet economy afloat through their skill in black market activities. They were also involved in arms trafficking, prostitution, and money laundering. During the Perestroika period of the late 1980s, the gangs forged ties with regional political regimes and cooperated in the restructuring of the economy by legitimizing their profits in stock exchanges, joint ventures, and banks.[4] Claire Sterling, in her book Thieves' World, notes that the mafia moved from "merely feeding off the economy to owning it." Illicit activities of the Russian mafias became more noticeable after the fall of the Berlin Wall. East German delinquents drew their power from contraband alcohol and cigarettes, automobile theft, fraud, prostitution, sales of arms and drugs, extortion, and assassinations.[5] During the final years of the Soviet Union, the mafia's volume of transactions increased from less than 1 billion rubles in 1989 to 130 billion rubles in 1991, a sum equivalent to the national deficit of the USSR. In 1992, organized crime controlled between 30 and 40 percent of the GNP of Russia. As of 1994 there were five thousand Russian mafia bands with 3 million accomplices spread throughout the fifteen ex-Soviet republics, over one-sixth of the world. And, like most powerful mafias, the Russian mafia spread into other parts of the world. It penetrated Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, and Philadelphia, as well as a dozen other cities in the United States and Canada. The FBI described the Russian mafia as prone to violence and considers it one of the most brutal criminal organizations ever in the United States.[6] Criminal activity increased sharply amid the economic and political chaos that developed after the fall of the Soviet Union. As the Soviet regime collapsed in Russia, the Russian ruling class, or nomenklatura, merged with elements of the criminal class. Stephen Handelman writes, The two criminal societies made a natural fit. Already strikingly similar in organization, they presided over the two major streams of capital available to post-Communist Russia: black-market profits and the wealth of the Communist Party. The old formal barriers between the vorovskoi mir and the Party hierarchy were erased by new alliances of convenience. The process was most visible in Russia's regions, where the crime lords and the bureaucrats shared the common aim of resisting the attempts of the central authorities to break the power of the large state enterprises.[7] Whether or not there is a central command controlling Russia's various mafias is a topic of much discussion. There are approximately two hundred Russian crime groups operating in twenty-nine countries outside the former Soviet Union. According to the Russian Interior Ministry, these groups run prostitution rings in Macao and Guangxhou, China; narcotics trafficking in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan; money laundering in Cyprus; money laundering and welfare fraud in Israel; illegal alien smuggling in Sweden; money laundering, car theft, nuclear material smuggling, arms dealing, and prostitution in Germany; money laundering in Belgium and the United Kingdom; diesel fuel tax evasion, car and jewelry theft, insurance fraud, organized shoplifting, contract murders, gun running, crack vial manufacturing, money laundering, and prostitution in the United States; and car and jewelry theft in Canada. Robert H. Rasor, head of the U.S. Secret Service's financial-crime unit notes, "The Russians know the smart way to get money isn't by robbing banks but by quietly creating fraud schemes that involve millions of dollars. They take advantage of the weaknesses in systems."[8] There is a clear hierarchy in the gangs. At the lowest level are the people who carry out the open illegal activity while at the top are the "godfathers" who plot the strategy. These chiefs may be allied with or themselves be government officials.[9] The major recent growth of the Russian mafias has come from sales of the former Soviet Union's control of various enterprises. These mafias control an estimated 60 to 70 percent Of Russian industry.[10] Most of the eighteen hundred commercial banks in Russia are either partially or completely owned by the mafias.[11] The Russian mafia is not only involved in the distribution and marketing of illicit products, but also in the production of drugs. There are frequent reports of large poppy field cultivations in the southern republics of Russia. Kazakhstan grows opium, as do Ubezk and Kyrgyztan. There are also instances of Russians manufacturing synthetic drugs (Krokodil and Chert), which are a thousand times stronger than heroin.[12] The Russian mafias have become particularly adept in arms sales. Thousands of cases of military weapons have been stolen and sold on the intemational black market. In addition to rockets, antitank missiles and hand grenades, the mafia has sold radioactive materials such as plutonium and enriched uranium. German and Swiss police have intercepted substantial shipments of nuclear weapons material." According to reports in the Western press, Russian generals have been operating through state companies or legitimate front firms and have used the criminal networks to market radioactive material to Middle Eastern and North African countries.[14] The former Soviet mafia is now part of a network of organized criminal organizations encompassing the entire world, with connections to the Sicilian mafia. THE SICILIAN MAFIA The Sicilian mafia is a potent political force. Despite repeated efforts to defeat it, it remains resilient. It is present not only in the United States, Russia and other Eastern European states, but also in France, Belgium, Germany, and Holland.[15] In the 1980s, the Sicilian mafia controlled 80 percent of New York's heroin market; had extensive investments in major financial companies, real estate, commerce, and agribusiness; and had an estimated gross domestic product (GDP) of $20 billion to $25 billion in Italy alone.[16] Its deleterious impact has been felt in the political arena, where it not only has made Italian politicians less accountable to the people who elect them but has created an alternative set of obligations to their interests. By controlling the illicit narcotics industry, the mafia has kept southern Italy economically backward. The Sicilian mafia, one of the oldest criminal clans in the world, was born on the island of Sicily; its modem roots date back to the nineteenth century It has expanded throughout Europe and is most notable for its involvement in criminal activities in Italy and Germany. Its leadership is in family units that have become the prototype for numerous criminal associations all over the world: the Corleone clan, the Madonia family in Palermo, the Giuseppe Madonia clan in Guela, and the Santapaola, clan in Catania.[17] European police sources believe the Sicilian mafia has about fifteen hundred members and close to fifteen thousand accomplices in Sicily, Calabria, Apulia, Campania, and Naples. Its main income is derived from cocaine and heroin trafficking. It created the new European cocaine market through an agreement with the Colombian drug cartels in which they gave the Colombians "exclusive rights" for trafficking South American cocaine in Europe. The Sicilian-Colombian pact was the first of similar agreements among other mafias in the world for illicit international transactions.[18] In 1992, the Sicilians introduced more than two hundred tons of drugs to Europe, with an income of about $10 billion. The economic power of the Sicilian mafia is so strong that the Cuntrera-Paolo and Pasquale brothers bought the Caribbean island of Aruba in 1980, acquiring hotels, land, banks, police, customs officials, government bureaucrats, and political leaders. Matching this extraordinary economic influence is the control of literally thousands of politicians and businessmen. This corruption does not respect hierarchies, ideologies, or political parties. In the 1990s Italy implemented Operation Clean Hands on the initiative of several courageous prosecutors. The goal of Operation Clean Hands was to weed out mafia connections with government officials and end the corruption infesting every level of Italian government and business. In the first two years Operation Clean Hands was put in place, more than fifteen hundred politicians and businessmen were arrested and many more placed under investigation.[19] They were accused of corruption and collaboration with criminal groups. By 1993, one third of the nation's Parliament faced corruption charges and the head of Italy's state-run media company was under investigation. It was concluded that bribes in the 1980s and early 1990s had amounted to approximately $10 to $20 thousand million, and the scandal forced many important public figures to leave their posts.[20] The Sicilian bosses (capos) are said to be responsible for the 1992 assassination of Italian judge Giovanni Falcone, considered one of the most valiant prosecutors of the mafia. His investigations demonstrated the involvement of prominent politicians in illicit transactions and led to extensive changes in the Italian political system. Even so, this extraordinary criminal enterprise has not been fundamentally defeated. One of the most notorious capos in the history of the mafia was Salvatore "Toto" Riina, the brain behind one of the bloodiest fights against the Italian state. Responsible for the deaths of hundreds of people, his organization assassinated five judges, one attorney general, one statesman, two chiefs of police, and important politicians from the Christian Democratic and Communist parties. Riina took over and consolidated his rule within the mafia after Lucky Luciano's imprisonment in 1974. He established an intelligence network among the 150 mafia families and seemed to have an unassailable position until the murders of Judges Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino. The public outcry over their deaths resulted in a major crackdown on Riina and the mafia, which exposed the Christian Democratic party's long-time cooperation with the mafia.[21] The exposure of this network had a devastating impact on the Christian Democratic party and brought to the fore alternative political parties. Much of the network of party government and mafia was knitted under the cover of a secret Masonic lodge composed of top military police, secret service, judges, and cabinet ministers. The extensive corruption of Italian society and government reveals that the interconnection of politics and crime has enormous staying power. According to author Brian Sullivan, The world's most notorious and supposedly most powerful crime group actually has been dependent on official government support and after that protection was removed [it showed] how vulnerable it has been to government prosecution.... [International organized crime groups] really may not enjoy much success without access to the resources and sponsorship of sovereign states. When such successful organizations are supposed to exist, I would be quite suspicious. I would investigate the possibility of covert government aid to such groups as the ready source of their strength.[22] In the post-cold war era the Sicilian mafia, which was thought to have no equal, was joined by other major mafia players. The most prominent ones, besides the Russians, were the Chinese triads and the Japanese yakuza. Claire Sterling believes that these three mafias, together with the American and Colombian mafias, have been forming a worldwide criminal consortium.[23] THE ASIAN SYNDICATES Of all the criminal mafia groups, the Chinese triads are probably the oldest. Historians of the triads have identified secret societies as early as the fifth century B.C. and have found them involved in the nineteenthcentury Taiping Rebellion, the 1911 revolution of Sun Yat-sen, and the 1937-45 struggle against Japan.[24] During the opium wars the triads made almost as much money as the British trading companies. After China banned opium they were able to survive by marketing heroin. A faction of the triads made an alliance with Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, and others established themselves in the Shan states of northern Burma. The trafficking and sale of heroin remains the main business of the Chinese triads, which own two-thirds of the world heroin market, with the United States as their principal client. They also deal in the lucrative trafficking of illegal immigrants in Southeast Asia, Europe, and the United States.[25] The triads have grown at a remarkable rate. Hong Kong has been their window to the world for more than a century, and many of the more powerful gangs are in Hong Kong, where such brotherhoods as the Wo Shing Wo and the Sun Hee On have a notorious presence. The Hong Kong-based triads are prominent in managing immigration to the United States and operate in every criminal activity from drugs and prostitution to loan sharking. Law enforcement has had considerable difficulty dealing with the triads because their members easily transfer from one syndicate to another for a fee.[26] Not as ancient, but certainly as widespread, are the Japanese organized criminal gangs, the yakuza—the word yakuza literally means "trash" in Japanese. Founded three hundred years ago, the yakuza was a criminal organization of gamblers and assassins that transformed into a fighting force during clashes of local and regional leaders in the seventeenth century. After World War II, they assisted right-wing political forces and allied with the CIA in persecuting militant leftists, independent syndicates, and the autonomous press, in exchange for control of the black market and freedom to continue with their criminal activities. In 1955, they participated in the creation of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) of Japan, and their top leaders began to dabble in the construction, entertainment, and prostitution industries.[27] In the past twenty-five years, the yakuza have extended into Asia, North and South America, Europe, and the former Soviet Union. They expanded in the early 1970s into Korea and the Philippines, then Hawaii and California, before hitting the rest of the Americas and Europe. The yakuza's principal activities include gambling, prostitution, drugs, and real estate investments in the Philippines, Taiwan, and Thailand. One of their operations consists of laundering money and trapping clients in loans with exaggerated interest rates. The yakuza have been cooperating with the Cosa Nostra since 1960, when they first began working as waiters, dishwashers, and cooks in Hawaii, the nearest occidental entrance to the United States.[28] Their annual income from arms and cocaine and heroin contraband is estimated at more than $20 billion. The total income of the yakuza has been estimated at over $71 billion. A coalition of several thousand organized gangs, the yakuza claim more than one hundred thousand members. Besides being one of the economic and financial pillars of Japan, the yakuza have laundered hundreds of millions of dollars in real estate and other investments in Hawaii, California, Nevada, Arizona, and New York.[29] For comparative purposes, Japan's largest bank, Dai-Ichi Kangyo Bank, employs nineteen thousand people and in 1993 had profits of nearly $384 million. Japanese businesses have been so beleaguered by the yakuza that they employ a private firm, the JSS company, for the protection of company executives. The severity of the situation prompted the United Nations to hold a crime conference in Naples the week of November 20, 1994, which focused on programs to combat the yakuza, the Sicilian mafia, and the other transnational crime organizations.[30] According to the Japanese investigator Ranko Fujizawa, "the political elite of the main parties and the mafiosos constitute the two faces of power which, with an intricate collaboration and exchange of favors, [have lived] harmoniously together for many decades." In October 1992, one of the most powerful political parties in Japan was divided by a corruption scandal, as a result of which the prime minister, Kiichi Miyazawa, fell.[31] U.S. commercial interests became aware of the power of the Japanese yakuza when the U.S. Federal Maritime Commission imposed a $100,000-a-visit fine on Japanese vessels because of the delays on U.S. shipping imposed by the Japan Harbor Transportation Association (JHTA). The JHTA allegedly has ties to the Yamaguchi-gumi syndicate, which has the power to delay the unloading and loading of U.S. ships even if it does not exercise it. This "prior consultation" system prevents a shipper from shopping around for cheaper unloading services and thereby operates as a sanctioned cartel. In effect, the arrangement between the JHTA and the yakuza allows them to keep labor unrest under control and intimidate shippers from bucking cartel control of Japan's harbors. Some of the companies, such as Isewan Terminal Service Company in Nagoya, have been termed a kigyo shatei, "a yakuza-linked business," according to national-police documents.[32] THE COLOMBIAN DRUG BARONS The Colombian mafia originated in the mid-1960s when the first drug traffickers initiated their operations on a small scale in U.S. territory. After the boom in illegal drug consumption worldwide, the Colombian leaders began to experience considerable increases in earnings and discovered the immense lucrative possibilities. The Medellin and Cali cartels soon became the largest producers and distributors of cocaine in the world. In order to obtain maximum political and economic power, the Medellin cartel, with Pablo Escobar Gaviria at the helm, entered into a bloody fight against the Colombian government, bribing and assassinating police, judges, magistrates, journalists, and even presidential candidates.[33] The Medellin cartel was responsible for the assassinations of Justice Minister Rodrigo Lara Bonilla in 1984 and Attorney General Carlos Mauro Hoyos in 1988. In 1989 the cartel informally declared war on the government and killed more than 550 people in a bombing campaign. The government essentially capitulated through lax jail sentences on notorious traffickers Pablo Escobar and the Ochoa brothers. Escobar was killed in 1993 after escaping from his luxurious prison accommodations.[34] The Colombian government cooperated with the Cali cartel in its battle against the Medellin cartel. The Cali group provided intelligence to the government forces seeking to eliminate Escobar. As a result, the Cali cartel replaced the Medellin as the principal supplier of cocaine out of South America. In 1989, the Medellin cartel controlled an estimated 75 percent of the world's supply of cocaine. In 1993, they controlled only 40 percent, and a year later, the Cali cartel was estimated to be moving as much as 85 percent of the twelve hundred tons of cocaine shipped out of South America.[35] Now the dominant cocaine mafia in Colombia, the Cali cartel is run by several groups of kingpins. The older group of godfathers is led by Miguel and Gilberto Rodriguez Orejuela and Ivan and Julio Fabio Urdinola. The rising younger group is led by Juan Carlos Ortiz and Juan Carlos Ramirez.[36] The Cali cartel has kept a low profile, bribing police and government officials to support their interests. The dominance of the mafias in Colombia has led to the coining of a new term, "colombianization," defining a social situation generated by narcotics traffickers. A colombianization is characterized by the disintegration of political, economic, and social structures and a permanent state of violent crimes such as political assassinations, executions, and human rights violations.[37] The Colombian mafias ally themselves with local capos in other countries such as Mexico to facilitate production, trafficking, and distribution. International agreements with the mafias of Europe and Russia have extended their business globally, with the United States as their principal market, making them one of the most powerful mafias in the world.[38] The global scope of the Cali cartel includes representatives from Japan to eastern and western Europe and, of course, throughout North, South, and Central America and the Caribbean. The cartel is vertically integrated in that it controls the purchasing, refining, wholesale, and distribution aspects of the cocaine trade. The sophistication of its distribution is demonstrated by its capacity to insert coca paste into concrete posts, plastic chairs, slippers, and other unusual products. These products are in turn shipped through legitimate businesses on cargo ships.[39] DEA administrator Thomas Constantine notes, "It is unequivocally clear that the cartels control every aspect of the cocaine trade, from the amount of cocaine to be shipped on consignment, right down to the markings on each package." In 1994, the DEA partially lifted the secrecy covering its two-year investigation into the methods the Cali cartel used to move large amounts of cocaine from Colombia through Mexico and Los Angeles to distribution points throughout the United States. Over the two years of the investigation, 166 members of the alleged distribution network were arrested and more than six tons of cocaine and $13 million were seized. The traffickers used commercial and private planes, trucks, cars, and boats to smuggle drugs into and across the United States. William Mockler, chief of the DEA's major investigation section, stated that those arrested did not know the names of those higher up the chain of command and thus could not expose the whole organization in any plea bargaining arrangements. The cartel network operates on the basis of a cell organization that compartmentalizes the knowledge each member has of the organization.[40] There is growing evidence of Cali cartel ties with the Russian mob. A Cali cartel member was spotted in Russia as early as 1992 and a year later a ton of cocaine from Colombia was seized in St. Petersburg. Several members of the Russian mob have been arrested in Bogota. The extent of the cooperation between the Russian and Colombian mafias led the foreign ministries of both countries to sign an agreement to exchange information in November 1997. One result of this cooperation occurred in January 1998 when Russia's federal security service, the successor to the KGB, discovered 265 kilos of Colombian cocaine in an underground vault between the Siberian town of Braskt and the port of Vladivostok. Forty tons of Colombian cocaine entered the territories of the former Soviet Union in 1997. When the 1998 World Cup was held in France, the Colombian-Russian cartels cooperated in inundating Europe with drugs.[41] Besides the Cali alliance, the Russian mob has developed ties with the largest Colombian left-wing insurgency, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). The Russian mob has been supplying FARC with sophisticated weapons, including rocket launchers and SAMs, handheld ground-to-air missiles.[42] The FARC threat has become increasingly severe, despite Pres. Andres Pastrana's (1998-) offer to deal with the traffickers, and the United States continues to increase its military assistance to the Colombian armed forces. Despite the deterioration of U.S. relations with Colombia in 1995 because of Pres. Ernesto Samper's alleged campaign financing from drug traffickers, White House drug czar Gen. Barry McCaffrey visited Colombia to offer U.S. support for the police and army who are "subject to guerrilla attacks." "It is undeniable," McCaffrey said, "that the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia and the National Liberation Army are funded with millions of dollars in drug money."[43] THE MEXICAN CARTELS More than 20 percent of the heroin, 60 percent of the marijuana, and 50 percent of the cocaine imported into the United States come from Mexico, according to State Department estimates. In 1994 alone Mexican narcotraffickers laundered $3 billion to $6 billion through complex financial circuits. The Cali cartel of Colombia has a dominant relationship with two of the major Mexican mafias, the Ciudad Juarez and the Gulf cartels.[44] The largest Mexican cartel, the Ciudad Juarez, was headed by Amado Carrillo Fuentes[45] until he died July 4, 1997, after having "plastic surgery on his face and three and a half gallons of fat sucked from his body."[46] He had been described as the most powerful of the drug traffickers, and some analysts claim he was worth more than $25 billion. In Mexico there is speculation as to whether or not Carrillo was murdered with an intentional overdose of drugs or if he is even dead. Further elements add to the mystery. Carrillo's bodyguard and look-alike, Jorge Palacio Hernandez, was kidnapped two weeks before Carrillo's reported death, and the surgeons who operated on Carrillo were found four months later "embedded in concrete-filled barrels beside a highway." No matter what truly happened to Carrillo, his cartel continues to operate.[47] The Gulf cartel was headed by Juan Garcia Abrego until his conviction and imprisonment in the United States in 1996. The Mexican attorney general's office reports the Gulf cartel is worth over $10 billion. It has compromised federal and judicial officers, including the narcotics chief of the Federal Police of Mexico, Guillermo Gonzalez Calderoni, and Deputy Attorney General Javier Coello Trejo.[48] When the South Florida Tax Force, under then-vice president George Bush, cracked down on smuggling through the Caribbean into Florida, the Cali cartel forged ties with three major organizations. According to former Mexican assistant attorney general Eduardo Valle, the Gulf cartel was given a share in the profits based on the volume of its shipments through Mexico. Since it took its profits from both the Medellin and Cali cartels, it made more money than both those Colombian cartels. The Tijuana cartel, headed by the Arellano Felix family, has also received international attention for its activities. In testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in October 1997, James Milford, deputy administrator of the DEA, stated that the Arellano Felix organization hired foreign mercenaries to train its private militia. Milford characterized the Tijuana cartel as "one of the most powerful, violent and aggressive trafficking organizations in the world."[49] The Mexican mafias are responsible for about half the cocaine imported into the United States and receive 40 to 50 percent of the profit. According to the DEA, the principal centers of consumption are Los Angeles, Houston, Miami, and New York. The DEA estimates that the Cali cartel ships into the United States an estimated 560 to 800 tons of cocaine a year via Mexico. American agents maintain that the U.S.-Mexican border between Los Angeles and Houston is out of governmental control and almost exclusively in the hands of drug traffickers. DEA investigator Philip Jordani asserts the narcobusinessmen and the narcopoliticians "colombianized" Mexico under the presidency of Carlos Salinas.[50] Jordani believes the assassinations of Roman Catholic Cardinal Juan Jesus Posadas Ocampo (1993), presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio (1994), and party secretary Francisco Ruiz Massieu (1994) were meant to demonstrate the power of the narcotraffickers and terrorize the Mexican society and government. Their aim is to continue benefiting from the impunity granted them by the narcopoliticians in key positions of the administration. Since the presidency of Gustavo Diaz Ordaz (1964-70), the businesses connected with narcotics trafficking have consolidated their power with the help of politicians who hold key positions in the cabinet. Several members of Miguel de la Madrid's (1982-88) and Carlos Salinas de Gortari's (1988-94) cabinets-in cluding the ex-secretary of defense Juan Arevalo Gardoqui, Enrique Alvarez del Castillo, Javier Coello Trejo, Guillermo Gonzalez Calderoni, Manuel lbarra Herrera, Miguel Aldana lbarra, Rafael Aguilar Guajardo, and Elias Ramirez, among others-have allegedly protected traffickers. According to Jordani, the power of the narcotics traffickers has reached the most important and strategic levels of government.[51] The Catholic Church in Mexico may also be touched by drug money. Nuncio Jeronimo Prigione, under public scrutiny on many occasions, drew attention to a possible Catholic Church connection because of his interview with two of the Arellano Felix brothers, leaders of the Tijuana cartel and two of Mexico's most wanted capos. Emmanuel Ruiz Subiaur, a specialist in religious matters, said, "there are indications the Catholic Church had money in the group represented by the banker Carlos Cabal Peniche," whose bank is among those investigated for money laundering through Operation Cobra, a joint U.S.-Mexico operation.[52] As in the cases of Italy, Russia, Colombia, and Peru, the Mexican cartels and drug traffickers enjoy protection from the highest levels of the Mexican government. When DEA agent Enrique "Kiki" Camarena was kidnapped, tortured, and murdered in 1985, the investigation of the perpetrators revealed that high-level government officials had close ties to the cartels. Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo, one of the top figures in the cartel associated with Camarena's abduction and murder, was closely associated with top Mexican officials.[53] Enrique Alvarez del Castillo was governor of Jalisco at the time of Camarena's abduction. He later became Pres. Carlos Salinas de Gortari's first attorney general. While governor of Jalisco, Alvarez was accused of allowing drug trafficking in his state and was considered an extraordinary choice to be in charge of the police forces that ran Mexico's drug interdiction efforts. Another name that surfaced from the investigations into Camarena's murder was that of Ruben Zuno Arce, the brother-in-law of former Mexican president Luis Echeverria. Zuno Arce previously owned the house in which Camarena was tortured. According to DEA sources, Zuno Arce was a major trafficker in Guadalajara and was accused of shooting two Mexican federal police in 1978. When he was ultimately arrested in San Antonio in 1989 for drug trafficking, prosecutors allegedly dropped the case against him because of his political connections.[54] A year later he was convicted in Los Angeles. Zuno Arce was a former associate of Rafael Caro Quintero and Ernesto Fonesco Carrillo. It is known that both these men were involved in the kidnap-killing of Camarena. When Caro Quintero, the head of the Guadalajara cocaine cartel, was finally captured, he had in his possession the phone numbers of several cabinet ministers, including the minister of defense.[55] As the drug war in Mexico becomes militarized, there is growing concern that more of the nation's officers will be corrupted by it.[56] U.S. authorities have implicated high-ranking Mexican officers, Maj. Gen. Juan Poblano Silva and his executive officer, Lt. Col. Salvador de la Vega, in drug trafficking. They were linked to a high-ranking member of the Mexican ruling party and convicted drug trafficker Hector Manuel Brumei Alvarez and Jorge Carranza Peniche, grandson of former president Venustiano Carranza. Another case of high-level military involvement concerned the firing in early 1997 of Gen. Jesus Gutierrez Rebollo as head of Mexico's antidrug agency. Highly praised by U.S. authorities and Pres. Ernesto Zedillo, for his integrity, General Gutierrez had been provided intelligence on U.S. strategies and informants in Mexico before it was belatedly discovered that he was on the payroll of the Amado Carrillo Fuentes-led Ciudad Juarez cartel, the nation's largest cartel. The Carrillo-Gutierrez relationship led to the penetration of U.S. antinarcotic intelligence. Carrillo Fuentes, one of Mexico's wealthiest men, also financed the military's antinarcotics operations against his principal rivals.[57] After General Gutierrez's arrest, Carrillo Fuentes visited Chile, Russia, and Cuba. At the time of his sudden death on July 4,1997, he was forging ties with the Russian mob and allegedly setting up operations in Chile to sell drugs to New Zealand and Australia.[58] --[cont]— Aloha, He'Ping, Om, Shalom, Salaam. Em Hotep, Peace Be, All My Relations, Omnia Bona Bonis, Adieu, Adios, Aloha. Amen. 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