The Illicit Supply Chain

In the age of globalization, the increased interconnectedness of the world allows individuals and groups to come together around common causes across national boundaries in order to form networks.[1] No longer restricted by physical, geographical, or political borders, networks increasingly operate outside of traditional government controls. In some instances, these networks form with the purpose of challenging traditional government authority. These challenges are not always bad. Some networks develop for the purpose of promoting the advancement of society. In doing so, they put pressure on governments to address political and social issues that are otherwise ignored or overlooked. [2]

Although some networks can be ultimately beneficial to the state, others have emerged with the capacity—and often even the objective—to be detrimental to it. When the end goal of a network is the advancement of its own parochial agendas at the expense of society, it can become a danger to society and the state. Among the most dangerous networks are those comprised of individuals and organizations engaged in criminal activities. Due to the globalization of the marketplace, illicit products and activities are no longer localized problems confined to individual states. Instead, the scope of criminal activities has expanded to macroeconomic levels, infecting the global marketplace via illicit networks. These networks function outside of the traditional state framework, spreading their operations across multiple organizational and geographical boundaries. Accordingly, illicit networks have no allegiance to any one government, state, or society at large. Instead, these networks are driven by market forces; their loyalty is reserved only for whatever increases their profits.

The damage that illicit networks inflict on states stems from their extensive use of market mechanisms to advance parochial and often antisocial goals at the expense of society and the public good. Crime flourishes in unstable and chaotic environments. Thus, in order to expand unchallenged in the marketplace, the more powerful networks are not satisfied with merely evading government and law enforcement detection. Instead, they seek and encourage direct challenges to—and ultimately the erosion of—state authority. Where these challenges are successful, networks are better positioned to expand criminal enterprises without effective government interference. When they gain enough power, they may threaten the overall stability of the state, its region, and even the world at large.

Operating Beyond the Traditional State Framework

In the past, government and law enforcement responses to crimes such as drug trafficking tended to focus on local criminal organizations with rigid hierarchical structures. In recent years, they have shifted their attention to global crime networks. Although their structures vary, these networks are driven more by market forces than the whims of individuals or specific groups. Therefore, even the successful targeting of individuals or specific groups may not have a significant impact on the larger network. The criminal activities will likely continue as long as the market and its incentives remain intact.[3]

While illicit activities are not typically localized to one state, the network’s central operations are usually set up in states where government authority can be easily evaded or undermined. Conflict, postconflict, and underdeveloped countries tend to be preferred locations for illicit network operations. In states currently in some form of ongoing conflict, illicit networks often choose to align themselves with antiregime elements, providing funding to antigovernment or terrorist groups in order to prolong or sustain the conflict environment in which they flourish. For example, opium production and trafficking operations in Afghanistan provide revenue and material support to insurgents in exchange for protection of the traffickers’ illicit activities. [4] As a result of this alliance, the continued instability in Afghanistan’s primary poppy cultivation regions in the south and southwest has made it difficult for the government and law enforcement to devote any significant effort to containing drug-trafficking operations.[5]

In postconflict and underdeveloped countries with severely weakened government infrastructures, illicit networks may seek to infiltrate the government itself. In the most extreme cases, such target states may be degraded into sovereign criminal enterprises; states captured by narcotics-trafficking networks can devolve into “narco-states.”For example, after law enforcement agents made progress in restricting the flow of drugs to the European market through the Caribbean, Latin American drug barons moved their trafficking operations to the West African country of Guinea-Bissau. As one of the poorest countries in the world,[6] Guinea-Bissau provided an ideal location. The weak government infrastructure made it easy for drug barons to infiltrate its ranks to the point where, in April 2010, the United States named two of the country’s senior military officials as drug kingpins.[7] According to a senior U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) official,“A place like Guinea-Bissau is a failed state anyway, so it’s like moving into an empty house. . . . You walk in, buy the services you need from the government, army and people, and take over.”[8] The Latin American drug-trafficking organizations did essentially that, effectively transforming the country into the world’s first narco-state.[9]

Illicit Networks as Commercial Supply Chains: The Mexican Example

As market-driven enterprises, if government and law enforcement efforts begin to threaten their profits, illicit networks will often take steps to better protect their activities including moving their operations to other states or regions. For instance, prior to 1990, Latin America–U.S. cocaine trafficking activities (production and transport) were centralized in Colombia. However, in the 1990s, Colombians began outsourcing most of their U.S. cocaine business (that is, cocaine smuggling across the U.S. border and sales inside the United States) to Mexican illicit networks, more commonly known as cartels. [10] During this transition, the Colombians retained production in Colombia and moved transport operations completely into Mexico. This change resulted in part from increased U.S.-Colombian law enforcement and military cooperation that began in the 1990s. Colombian cartel leaders especially began to fear extradition to the United States, the fate that befell Gilberto “the Chess Player” Rodríguez (then head of the Cali Cartel) and “Don Diego” Montoya (then head of the Norte Del Valle drug cartel). By shifting transport to Mexicans, the Colombians could keep a lower profile in the eyes of U.S. authorities. Although this new business model resulted in a revenue loss for the Colombians, the enormous profit margins to be made from coca plant growing, processing, and exporting to Mexico still allowed for sizable revenue.

The key lesson from this transition, however, is that while law enforcement agents were successful in curbing the activities of Colombian criminal organizations, cocaine trafficking in Latin America did not cease. As long as the market and its incentives remain, the larger illicit network will find a way to move its products to the marketplace. In this particular case, the major trafficking activities were moved to Mexico, where they continue to the present day.

Since market forces primarily drive illicit networks, the networks function and can be best understood as supply chains. In the traditional commercial world, a supply chain is a system that moves a product from the supplier to the customer. It typically involves people, organizations, processes, technology, and so forth. Wal-Mart is a commonly cited example of a successful traditional commercial supply chain. Its model revolves around keeping prices low for its consumers by purchasing goods directly from suppliers and bypassing all intermediaries. In the case of the Mexican illicit networks, the methodology used to transport the product to the market and the subsequent illicit proceeds back to Mexico is constantly evolving in response to government and law enforcement activities. However, while the methodology may change, the larger supply chain model remains the same. The illicit networks employ their “staff ” members to maintain distinct roles within the supply chain in order to enable key processes and functions to operate without interference from law enforcement. As long as these fundamental roles are not disrupted, the illicit network is able to adapt its activities to ensure the supply chain is not disrupted.

Like traditional commercial supply chains, illicit supply chains tend to be secure, redundant, and resilient to disruption. They are often designed with an extensive compartmentalization of operational knowledge throughout the layers of the various organizations involved. Furthermore, the end-to-end supply chain is designed with redundant nodes and simplified roles to limit the potential negative impact that any one individual or group of individuals can have on the success of the overall operation. In the Wal-Mart model, the organization limits negative impact by controlling virtually all aspects of the movement of goods from supplier to customer, bypassing the need to rely on any intermediaries that might slow down the system or add to the cost of its operations. In May 2010, Wal-Mart announced plans to become its own freight forwarder, which would further lower prices in its stores by cutting the cost it took for third parties to transport goods to its warehouses.[11] By examining operations using a supply chain model, we can identify the interrelationships, logistics, and communications used by successful illicit networks. This model not only allows us to examine how illicit networks function, but also leads us to a better understanding of how protection of these illicit supply chains undermines government efforts to contain them, as well as the larger detrimental effect illicit networks have on the state.

The supply chains of global criminal networks are bidirectional; that is, one chain conveys contraband from supplier to demander while a reverse chain conveys payment from demander to supplier. In the case of Mexico, narcotics smuggling—which fuels corruption, weapons trafficking, kidnappings, and violent crime—has risen to disturbing levels over the past few years. Mexican cartels ship indigenous drugs (marijuana, methamphetamine, and others) and, as described above, imported drugs (principally Colombian cocaine) into the United States. According to the 2009 National Drug Intelligence Center (NDIC) National Drug Threat Assessment, bulk cash is the primary method used by Mexican drug-trafficking organizations to transport their proceeds from the U.S. market back to Latin America. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security estimates between $18 billion and $29 billion in cash is smuggled from the United States to Mexico annually, nearly all from drug sales.[12] The primary recipients of illicit U.S.-generated gross drug revenue are the nodes along the supply chains of Mexican illicit networks. These proceeds are essential to sustain their operations, purchase additional drugs and supplies, and protect their activities in other ways including bribes to government and law enforcement officials. [13] Without these proceeds, illicit networks would be forced to identify alternative methods to fund their operations, greatly reducing their power. The movement of bulk cash across the border is arguably the most important part of the Mexican illicit network supply chain. Cash makes up the majority of drug revenue for obvious reasons; it is convenient and virtually untraceable. Cash is the preferred method of payment for the product on the street for the same reasons. To a large extent, cash facilitates an illicit network’s operations, making it more difficult for governments to detect and track the flow of illicit funds. Reliance on cash allows illicit networks to function in a shadow economy, operating in an unregulated sphere outside the global marketplace. In 2010, the Mexican government took steps to combat illicit networks’ use of cash to fund operations by introducing new regulations that limited the amount of U.S. currency allowed to be deposited into Mexican financial institutions. However, it is too early to determine whether such regulations will have a significant impact on drug-trafficking operations. Prepaid access cards have emerged as a potential alternative to both transporting and laundering money, and a 2010 report by the Department of Homeland Security noted that these cards might offer more advantages than cash due to their small size and lack of reporting requirements. As of this writing, however, neither Mexican nor U.S. law enforcement agents have observed wide use of prepaid cards by Mexican illicit networks.[14]

Moving such large amounts of bulk cash poses a complex logistical challenge for illicit networks. To transport this cash, network managers compartmentalize the activities, assigning discrete management responsibilities to different cells within the supply chain. Each cell has a fixed role or function it must perform that is integral to the overall success of the network. Roles include consolidating and counting proceeds at centralized counting houses, packing cash into vehicles, moving cash across the border, providing intelligence related to law enforcement whereabouts, and so forth. [15]

For cash consolidation and the U.S. transport phase of the supply chain, network members take the drug proceeds to a regional centralized counting house. These houses are generally located in major U.S. cities such as Atlanta, Chicago, Boston, and Los Angeles. [16] In October 2011, Federal agents seized $200,000 in cash from a network of stash houses in Phoenix operated by members of the Sinaloa Cartel.[17] During this phase, in addition to money counting, members typically convert smaller bills to $100 or $50 notes to reduce the bulk of the cash.[18] The money remains in the counting house until it is ready to be transported across the border.

The next part of the supply chain is the preparation of the cash for transport into Mexico. After being converted to larger bills, the cash is vacuum-sealed into plastic bags and concealed in vehicles.[19] Illicit networks typically conceal cash in the wheel walls, panels, and spare tire compartments. Sometimes cash is hidden in tractor-trailer trucks, which are also used to transport drugs into the United States from Mexico.[20] In March 2011, during a routine traffic stop, Indianapolis police seized $500,000 from the hidden compartment of a truck’s ceiling. The cash was bound for a truck stop in McAllen, Texas. [21] Drivers typically deliver the cash to a safe house along the border (as was the case in March 2011) or drive directly into Mexico.

The next node in the illicit cash supply chain is transporting proceeds across the border from the United States back to Mexico. To guard against seizure by Federal agents, network members frequently rotate cash transport vehicles. They also only ship a portion of their proceeds in any vehicle. Most vehicles will only carry between $150,000 and $500,000. Therefore, if a vehicle is stopped and cash is seized, the loss is not sufficient to render the overall operation unprofitable.[22] The network typically has a group of rotating drivers responsible for driving the cash to a designated border town close to the drug-trafficking center of its organization.[23] Times and locations of border crossings are chosen based on intelligence provided by lookouts (called halcones, or hawks). These halcones are responsible for carefully watching border traffic to spot any unusual patterns or searches. If they observe anything unusual, they will reroute the vehicles to another crossing.[24] The illicit networks hold the advantage in this step of the chain since U.S. law enforcement has primarily focused on stopping the northward flow of contraband. According to U.S. and Mexican officials, although 10 percent of southbound vehicles are supposed to be stopped for a secondary screening, the actual number is far less.[25] In a March 2011 report, the Government Accountability Office noted that the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) seized $67 million in illicit bulk cash at the border over the past 2 years.[26] Since NDIC estimates between $18 and $29 billion in cash is smuggled out of the country each year, the amount seized by U.S. officials is quite low at less than 1 percent. According to the same report, CBP efforts are limited by lack of staffing, effective infrastructure, and technology.[27] As one U.S. official in El Paso admitted,“We are simply not configured to deal effectively with southbound traffic.”[28]

After the cash has been moved into Mexico, the final link in the supply chain is to break it down into smaller quantities to meet payroll, pay bribes, and compensate Colombian suppliers. This is estimated to take about half of the cash. The remainder is then integrated into the financial system using a variety of tactics. Often, the bulk cash is deposited into the Mexican banking system through centros cambiarios (currency exchange businesses), banks, retail stores, casinos, real estate purchases, and a variety of other money-laundering techniques. When needed, funds are repatriated back to the U.S. banking system through correspondent banking and banknote sales to U.S. institutions.[29] Cartel accountants supervise this process. One common tactic used by illicit networks is to launder drug proceeds through a system called the Black Market Peso Exchange (BMPE). In the BMPE, drug revenues are smuggled back into Mexico to be exchanged for pesos at a discounted rate. The peso brokers then use the dollars to buy products in the United States and ship them back to purchasers in Mexico. For example, in November 2011, U.S. Federal agents arrested Vikram Datta of Laredo, Texas, for laundering millions of dollars for the Sinaloa Cartel through his perfume business as part of a BMPE. Datta sold millions of dollars worth of perfume to corrupt buyers in Mexico since 2009.[30] According to prosecutors, he told an undercover agent that his responsibility was “just washing the whole money.”[31] Over a 2-year investigation, Datta and other coconspirators deposited more than $25 million in American currency in dozens of bank accounts. [32]

These supply chain steps and roles are fairly standardized; however, the methods used to conduct the required activities change frequently. One example of their adaptability is their increasing use of emerging communication technologies (for example, Voice Over Internet Protocol, satellite technology, cell phones, and two-way radios) in the intelligence step of the chain.[33] By utilizing new modes of communication, cell members can anticipate law enforcement efforts and adjust their activities. In a 2010 interview, a U.S. official admitted that the cartels “have very good intelligence on our operations.We are always one step behind.”[34] This advantage is largely rooted in the networks’ reliance on the supply chain model to effectively organize and preempt threats to their chains.

In the case of Mexican illicit networks, the collection and movement of bulk cash drug proceeds function as a supply chain that operates in opposition to both the Mexican and the U.S. governments. By adopting and adapting the structure of commercial supply chains for their own illicit activities, illicit networks have been able to position their operations in opposition to the state.

Damage to the State

Mexican illicit networks have largely replaced their Colombian counterparts as the primary drug-trafficking organizations in Latin America. As a result, Mexican cartels have enjoyed a significant increase in their profit share. To continue increasing profits, these networks have devoted greater and greater resources to protecting their market share and supply chain. For the supply chain to function effectively, each process step or role must be protected by the network. In the case of Mexico, enforcement typically takes the form of violence and/or corruption— both of which severely undermine governance and the stability of the state.

Over the past 5 years, there has been a significant escalation in drug-related violence in Mexico. In 2010 alone, there were 11,583 drug-related murders (compared to 6,587 in 2009).[35] In the past 4 years, officials estimate that almost 40,000 have been killed in connection to drug-trafficking operations.[36] This escalation may be strongly linked to the government’s efforts to curb illicit network activities.[37] As market-driven enterprises, Mexican illicit networks have a strong incentive to protect their profits. Violence is an effective means to that end. The majority of drug-related murders stem from conflicts over control of smuggling 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 often executed, which was the case in August 2010 when 72 migrants were allegedly killed by armed gangs in Tamaulipas.[46]

In addition to using human smuggling in support of their drug-trafficking operations, cartels have launched separate human-trafficking and prostitution enterprises to diversify their business and create additional profit lines. In July 2011, a U.S. Government official pointed to this shift in the cartels’ original business model, noting,“They realize [human trafficking] is a lucrative way to generate revenue, and it is low-risk.” [47] With government efforts still largely focused on drug trafficking, human-trafficking convictions in Mexico remain rare.[48] The diversification of cartel activities in Mexico reveals just how extensive their influence and power have become. Their drug-trafficking activities, which still fund the majority of their operations, are so well protected that they can expand into other illicit activities without fear of state interference.

Both violence and corruption have obvious impact on governance and the stability of a state. Regardless of how they choose to protect their activities, illicit networks are clearly undermining government authority across Mexico. One result is the growing exodus of Mexicans from their country to escape the increasing drug-related violence. Since 2006, an estimated 125,000 middle- and upper-class Mexicans have fled their country for the United States. [49]

Collateral Costs

The damage inflicted by illicit networks can extend far beyond the borders of the state in which their main operations or headquarters are located. Although the damage may be greatest in the home state, in the age of globalization, no state is immune from criminal networks no matter where they are located. The convergence of criminal organizations to form illicit networks is a threat not only to political and economic stability in individual states, but also to stability across the globe.

While the most dramatic impacts of illicit network supply chains and operations in Mexico are felt in Mexico itself, their impacts are increasingly being felt in other states of the region, including the United States. In addition to targeting Mexican agents and police officials, illicit networks are often working to corrupt, and more frequently targeting, U.S. law enforcement agents at the border. At a Senate subcommittee hearing in June 2011, a CBP official testified that 127 U.S. customs agents had been indicted for crimes including cocaine trafficking and money laundering since 2004. [50] In 2009, U.S. Customs Agent Luis Alarid was sentenced to prison after it was discovered that he had accepted over $200,000 in cash along with vehicles and electronics from cartel members in exchange for allowing vehicles carrying drugs to cross the border.[51]

In addition to corrupting customs agents, Mexico’s illicit networks have used violence against U.S. law enforcement officials and citizens to protect their activities from U.S. intervention, although so far not as much—at least not yet—as many fear. The number of U.S. law enforcement and citizen deaths and disappearances related to Mexico’s drug trafficking has increased in the past 5 years. According to State Department figures, “at least 106 U.S. residents were victims of ‘executions’ or ‘homicides’ directly related to drug battles in Mexico in 2010, compared to 79 in 2009 and 35 in 2007.” [52] U.S. border towns have seen a sharp increase in kidnappings and home invasions over the past few years. Moreover, Mexican illicit networks have begun to directly target U.S. law enforcement agents who threaten to impede their activities, instructing their members “to shoot and kill American border agents usingAK47 assault rifles.”[53] These tactics were on display in February 2011 when one U.S. immigration agent was killed after cartel members targeted and attacked his vehicle while he was driving on assignment in Mexico.[54]

Illicit networks may threaten stability in multiple states when they adapt their operations in response to law enforcement activities. For example, in response to the aggressive crackdown on drug trafficking by the Mexican and U.S. governments in Mexico itself, Mexican illicit networks have begun to move some of their operations into Central American countries where law enforcement and government capacity is substantially weaker. [55] Honduras is one country that has been impacted by the shift. The 2009 military coup there facilitated the movement of some cartel activities into that country. The movement to Honduras was largely successful. Honduras was placed on the U.S. list of major illicit drug transit or major illicit drug producing countries for the first time in 2010.[56]

Cooperation between Mexican cartels and Middle Eastern terrorist networks has recently become an area of concern. In testimony before Congress, the former chief of operations and intelligence for the DEA stated:

Collaboration between Latin American drug cartels and groups such as Iran’s Quds Force and the Islamic terror group Hezbollah is growing far faster than most policymakers in Washington, DC, choose to admit. This increasing cooperation means that Iran’s al-Quds Force and its proxy Hezbollah have more opportunities to leverage the transportation, money laundering, arms trafficking, corruption, human trafficking and smuggling infrastructures of the Colombian and Mexican drug trafficking cartels.[57]

Similarly, former Ambassador to the Organization of American States Roger Noriega stated,“There are two parallel terror networks growing at an alarming rate in Latin America. One is operated by Hezbollah and its collaborators and the other is managed by a cadre of Quds operatives.” [58] For example, in September 2011, a Mexican cartel was accused of cooperating with an Iranian Revolutionary Guard member plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington. Earlier that year, Manssor Arbabsiar, working with Iranian Revolutionary Guard member Gholam Shakuri, through friends and relatives allegedly approached a member of the Zetas Cartel (who was actually a DEA informant). Arbabsiar and the informant are alleged to have worked out a deal under which Arbabsiar was to pay $1.5 million to the Zetas to kill the Saudi ambassador at a Washington restaurant.

In December 2011, a Lebanese drug kingpin was charged with working with the Mexican Zeta Cartel and Hizballah to launder large amounts of cash. Ayman Joumaa (also known as “Junior”) and his associates allegedly shipped an estimated 85,000 kilograms of cocaine into the United States and laundered more than $850 million in drug money coming out of Mexico from the Zeta Cartel through front companies and the Lebanese Canadian Bank. The two groups cooperated: Hizballah received cartel cash and protection in exchange for expertise in money laundering and explosives training for the Zetas.

The White House unveiled its Strategy to Combat Transnational Organized Crime in July 2011. The report underscored the seriousness of the risk that illicit networks pose to international security, noting the damage that networks are capable of if they gain enough power to penetrate or corrupt state institutions. To guard their market interests, illicit networks “insinuate themselves into the political process” through bribery and/or infiltrating financial and security industries.[59] In doing so, these networks “build alliances with political leaders, financial institutions, law enforcement, foreign intelligence, and security agencies . . . exacerbating corruption and undermining governance, rule of law, judicial systems, free press, democratic institution-building, and transparency.”[60]

Conclusion

The challenge that increasingly global and diversified criminal networks pose to states and to the international system of states stems from the extensive and successful use of market mechanisms to serve parochial and antisocial ends at the expense of society and the public good. These networks function outside of the traditional state framework, working often in direct opposition to governments to protect their profits. When these networks gain sufficient power, they can infiltrate and corrupt governments. Meanwhile, states do not in most cases have the tools necessary to protect themselves from these corrupting agents. As UNODC spokesman Walter Kemp asked in February 2010,“How can an international system, created to deal with tensions between states, confront non-state actors who become rich, powerful, and dangerous by respecting neither laws nor borders?” [61]

To successfully counter the spread and cancerous impacts of illicit networks, governments must cooperate. As modern markets transcend individual state boundaries, so illicit networks operate increasingly beyond individual state boundaries and cannot be defeated ultimately within any individual state. Eradicating criminal organizations in one state is simply not enough to contain the larger illicit networks and their activities. Instead, law enforcement agencies must work together across state boundaries, sharing information and resources to break down supply chains and cut off network access to the global marketplace.

Acknowledgment

The author thanks Rachele Byrne for her assistance in preparation of this chapter.

Notes

[1] National Intelligence Council, Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, November 2008).

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Department of State, International Narcotics Control Strategy Report 2011 (Washington, DC: Department of State, 2011).

[5] Ibid.

[6] In 2010, Guinea-Bissau was ranked 175 out of 177 countries on the United Nations Human Development index.

[7] “U.S. Names Two Guinea-Bissau Military Men ‘Drug Kingpins,’“ BBC News, April 9, 2010, available at .

[8] Ed Vulliamy, “How a Tiny West African Country Became the World’s First Narco-State,” The Guardian, March 9, 2008, available at .

[9] Kevin Sullivan, “Route of Evil,” The Washington Post, May 25, 2008, available at .

[10] The term cartel is used commonly to describe Mexican narcotics illicit networks, and this practice is adopted herein. In actuality, a cartel is a combination of independent organizations that unite to limit competition or fix prices (for example, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries). Mexican cartels are ruthlessly fighting one another for control of drug supply routes, so technically the term is incorrect. The term drug-trafficking organization also falls short in that it fails to capture the other criminal activities the organization sometimes pursues (for example, human trafficking and prostitution).

[11] Chris Burritt, “Why Wal-Mart wants to take the Driver’s Seat,” Bloomsburg Businessweek, May 2010, available at .

[12] National Drug Intelligence Center (NDIC), National Drug Threat Assessment 2009, Product No. 2008Q0317- 005 (Washington, DC: Department of Justice, 2008).

[13] Douglas Farah, “Money Laundering and Bulk Cash Smuggling: Challenges for the Merida Initiative,” Working Paper on U.S.-Mexico Security Cooperation, The Woodrow Wilson International Institute for Scholars, Washington, DC, May 2010.

[14] Ibid.

[15] Ibid.

[16] Ibid.

[17] “70 tied to Mexico drug cartel busted in Arizona,” Reuters, October 31, 2011, available at .

[18] Farah.

[19] Ibid.

[20] Ibid.

[21] Charlie Morasch, “Indiana drug seizure reveals Mexican cartels’ infiltration in states,” Land Line, October 28, 2011.

[22] Farah.

[23] Ibid.

[24] Ibid.

[25] Ibid.

[26] Government Accountability Office, Testimony Before the Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Con trol, “Moving Illegal Proceeds: Opportunities Exist for Strengthening the Federal Government’s Efforts to Stem Cross-Border Currency Smuggling,” March 9, 2011.

[27] Ibid.

[28] Farah.

[29] See Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Web site.

[30] Julian Aguilar, “Money-Laundering Case Speaks to Border Fears,” The New York Times, November 12, 2011, available at .

[31] Ibid.

[32] Ibid.

[33] Farah.

[34] Ibid.

[35] Department of State.

[36] “Mexico town’s police force resigns over drug attacks,” BBC News, August 4, 2011, available at .

[37] Ibid.

[38] NDIC, National Drug Threat Assessment 2010, Product No. 2010-Q0317-001 (Washington, DC: Department of Justice, February 2010).

[39] Department of State.

[40] United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), The Globalization of Crime: A Transnational Organized Crime Threat Assessment, 2010 (Vienna: UNODC, 2010).

[41] “Mexico fires thousands of police to combat corruption,” Reuters, August 10, 2010, available at .

[42] Rory Caroll, “Mexico’s drugs war: in the city of death,” The Guardian, September 10, 2010, available at .

[43] Josh Meyer, “Mexico’s Drug War: Drug Cartels Raise the Stakes on Human Smuggling,” The Los Angeles Times, March 28, 2009.

[44] UNODC.

[45] Human Rights Watch, World Report 2011 (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2010), available at .

[46] Ibid.

[47] Anne-Marie O’Connor, “Mexican cartels move into human trafficking,” The Washington Post, July 27,2011, available at .

[48] Ibid.

[49] “Affluent Mexicans Flee Violence, Move to United States,” The Dallas Morning News, August 9, 2011, available at .

[50] “U.S. goes after agents who moonlight for Mexican cartels,” Globalpost, July 10, 2011, available at .

[51] Randall C. Archibald, “Hired by Customs, but Working for Mexican Cartels,” The New York Times, December 16, 2009, available at .

[52] Sevil Omer, “More Will Die: Mexico Drug War Claims U.S. Lives,” MSNBC.com, April 22, 2011, available at .

[53] Ibid.

[54] Barry Leibowitz, “Jaime Zapata, U.S. Immigration Agent, Shot Dead in Mexico in Apparent Ambush,” CBS News, February 16, 2011, available at .

[55] Randall C. Archibald, “Drug Wars Push Deeper into Latin America,” The New York Times, March 23, 2011, available at .

[56] Ibid.

[57] Michael A. Braun, former chief of operations and intelligence for DEA, testifying before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, February 2, 2012.

[58] Ambassador Roger F. Noriega, visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, testifying before the House Committee on Homeland Security’s Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence, July 7, 2011.

[59] Strategy to Combat Transnational Organized Crime: Addressing Converging Threats to National Security (Washington, DC: The White House, July 2011).

[60] Ibid.

[61] Walter Kemp, “Organized crime: a growing threat to security,” SIPRI.org, February 10, 2010, available at .