Mexico’s drug cartels are moving into the gasoline industry
rollingstone.com
rollingstone.com
It's about BOPE, the special operations unit of Rio de Janeiro police. The first is about the military anti-gang exploits, the second is a good hard look at what corruption looks like. The drugs aren't going away if you break up a cartel, neither is the money.
Along with Elite Squad, these movies are simply amazing.
Wagner Moura. the main character in Elite Squad, also stars as Pablo Escobar in Netflix's original series Narcos.
I felt City of God occasionally seemed to have some sympathy for the subjects... but other times treated them like characters and video game NPCs...
I wrote a little extra about the amazing story behind the film here:
http://webiphany.com/2010/12/14/is-brazil-finally-ready-to-f...
tl;dr: the movie was leaked to the internet before widespread theatrical release to prevent police censorship and still became a financial success. It's a moment in Brazilian internet history that is important to know about.
How easily/efficiently can oil companies launder money?
Why is no one addressing the seemingly obvious truth that the entire world is nothing but a complex corrupt criminal system of lies? Or am I just far too cynical?
It isn't.
> Or am I just far too cynical?
Yes.
https://www.nytimes.com/2000/08/19/nyregion/a-smuggling-oper...
1. Banning of italian immigration in 1924 ( Immigration Act of 1924 ).
2. The integration of italians into american life.
3. Poor immigrant italian families transitioning to wealthier italian-american families generation after generation.
4. Decades long government crackdown on organized crime.
5. Competition from non-italian mafia ( russian, ukrainian, asian, cuban and of course the mexicans ).
As immigration stop and as italian american moved out of cities to suburbs and got professional jobs, the mob lost its prestige and demographic base. And as the government cracked down, the structure of the mafia was slowly dismantled along with its reputation. Finally, just like the italian mafia usurped the irish mafia, the italian mafia was being squeezed by other younger and stronger ethnic mafia groups.
The US government has significantly overlooked organized crime operations in general (and while some members of government may have pursued them, it was largely a sideshow by the "legal" arm and not by the "operational" arm - and had organized crime retaliated against those senators, you can bet that there would have been an "operational" response). At times, we've worked with organized crime (running cocaine with the CIA, etc, or the CIA working with Lucky Luciano in WW2).
That's the thing with organized crime - it's not all that secret. So there's typically an informal balance stuck between the government and the criminals - don't be too much of a problem to civilians, and especially not members of government, and we'll leave enforcement to local law and not bring in the big guns, and we won't work with your competition against you.
I think the big difference, as others have noted, is that in Mexico there isn't significant corporate corruption in politics. So the money lining politicians' pockets was more likely to be drug related, and cartel specific. So the cartel wars extended into government and there isn't a sufficient corporate interest in stability to have pushed back against it. And well, now it's far past the point of a balance being stuck.
It's worth noting that we've had instances of significant local corruption and infiltration of organized crime into local police/AG/government in the US (including killing of local civilians by the police - you can search for "The Boys on the Tracks" - the argument against Dan Harmon is compelling) - it's just not as widespread and it's not at a national level.
That peoples in USA buying drugs are the drivers of violence in Mexico.
That legalizing drugs would make the cartels and the violence disappear.
The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 caused many opium poppy planters to move to Mexico.
During WW1, WW2, the high demand for opioid-based analgesics like morphine resulted in increased opium planting.
Why were there opium poppy planters in the US in the first place? Opium poppy is not a plant that is not endemic to the Americas. It starts with the opium wars, where the British fought to force China into tolerating their opium trade at the cost of millions of people becoming addicted.
I wonder, however, if drugs had never become illegal would a major crime organization managed to form in the first place?
Mexican cartels have the infrastructure already in place: "Miguel, get 25 guys and hijack the fuel trucks"...or rob armored trucks. That infrastructure, including manpower, political protection etc was built and is probably maintained with drug money.
It's still a massive source of revenue and it's what made these cartels big in the first place. Otherwise, they wouldn't be called "drug cartels".
> That legalizing drugs would make the cartels and the violence disappear.
It would drastically reduce the problem, just like ending the prohibition on alcohol drastically reduced, but didn't eliminate, Mafia activities.
The link between cartels and US demand for drugs is clear. This is just something local that is happening over and above the international trade.
The second narrative is kind of obviously too simple. Of course the cartels won't just dissolve, and maybe they will find ways to sustain themselves indefinitely. But maybe we shouldn't continue to feed them? Surely that doesn't help.
Nothing will make violence disappear completely.
That said, legalizing drugs will most certainly reduce cartel activity.
Cartels exist because they sell a product with a huge margin that people can't really buy from anywhere else. Even when selling stolen products such as gasoline their market and margin is much smaller.
>their market and margin is much smaller
you think there's a smaller market for gasoline than drugs?
Buying illegal gasoline only makes sense for some individuals in transportation because in Mexico there is no fiscalization on a large portion of the economy (street vendors for example).
Big transportation companies couldn't do it. They need to justify expenses, get invoices, etc. A couple of years back it was easy to get fake invoices since everything was on paper, but there was a reform in 2016 and now all invoices are electronically signed by the Mexican IRS.
Organized crime isn't thriving because authorities don't have intelligence, it's thriving because it has greased the surrounding gears.
In some cities, most gas stations are forced to buy from them.
> Locals know which of them and who's the owner
Why would they know?
And the locals know because the cartels use those stations to fill their tanks for free, and they do that in convoy. At least it was like that 10 years ago, maybe the cartels are more discrete now.
Also, do you think the profits are so big that gangs would fight for territory to be able to sell illegal gasoline?
I seriously doubt it.
>Also, do you think the profits are so big that gangs would fight for territory to be able to sell illegal gasoline?
the article says this very thing in fact occurs!
Also, isn't being an owner-operator a good reason to play by the rules? By using stolen fuel you'd be risking a very expensive asset, and indeed your livelihood.
For people like truckers, etc, if stolen gasoline is not immediately available, they will pump from a gas station.
You cannot get addicted to gasoline.
Look at the stats of drug deaths from different drugs over the last 10 years and see the huge spike. I believe double for cocaine, and triple for meth and heroine in just a few years. This is worse than 80s crack epedimic in terms of death. The cartels also didn’t get weaker they became more violent and richer.
I can’t beliebe I was so naive to think about legalizing drugs when I was in college. I am 100% for marijuana, medical marijuana without a doubt should be legal in every state anyone disagreeing has basically no merit. But the rest of them, I’m okay with a mild version of the Reagan crackdowns. We’re a lot less racist and a lot more forgiving from 30 years ago, I think we need to be a lot more forgiving for personal drug use or force the courts the option to send repeat offenders to rehab or prison and 100% they’d choose rehab, prison makes absolutely no sense for heavy hard drug users. We need to be even harsher for heavy drug dealing, gang violence, drug violence, and need far more agents stopping the drug inflows from the southern border and need to beef up our coast guard.
Also need to help the economy of flyover states because a lot of the drug deaths are from there.
Citation needed. They've always pushed all of the above across the border, but you seem to be conflating two unrelated things: legalization in a few states with the opioid epidemic. What seems to be a far more likely driver of the opioid epidemic is the availability of cheap synthetic opiates like fentanyl that are highly concentrated, and therefore easier to smuggle.
First thing I searched up, not the article I originally read but I’ll find it. You tell me how is cocaine related to opiates? Cocaine overdose deaths doubled since 2013...that’s 5 years and it DOUBLED. Cartels are pushing all of these especially meth.
Actually ignore the first link, check out the .gov link here on overdose deaths: https://www.drugabuse.gov/related-topics/trends-statistics/o...
Both links have good visuals. Meth quadrupled in 5 years, FIVE times as many deaths from 1 drug, heroin increased even by a larger magnitude.
Clearly there is a big market for these drugs, so that commerce might as well be part of the local economy instead of the international black market
Addiction and abuse rates would skyrocket, though. With an availability similar to alcohol, that would begin a plague that would envelop the country with astonishing speed. The problem with those drugs now is already a big problem, but if you put them within reach of every single adult you could bring a country to its knees.
Yes, legalizing them would be a boon for commercial interests, but that is practically the only people who would benefit from this. Oh, and drug treatment industries! They'd become as ubiquitous as mental health businesses. Big Constipation would replace Big Tobacco.
> prevent deaths from adulterated drugs.
The influx of death and destruction introduced by that legalization would make adulterated drug deaths look quaint.
Whatever the solution to this problem is, it won't be full-scale legalization. These drugs that are almost impossible to use responsibly, and are guaranteed to be highly addictive.
That's quite an assumption. For example, I don't have thoughts like "I wish heroin was legal, because I want to be a junkie!" Somehow, I'm not an alcoholic nor a smoker, despite them being readily available.
I do love my coffee, however :-)
Legalize weed? Perfect. Cocaine? Probably no worse than alcohol. Opiates? Absolutely not.
Why do you discount the role of my making a choice? I see smokers coughing up their lungs, junkies who care for nothing other than their next fix, and drunks lying in their vomit. It's not hard to choose not to take that path.
The question is how lucrative its their new initiatives, how much of structure they are able to upkeep and how much crime there consist of "inherited" structure that is not viable with their new margins.
No organizational collapse looks good, and this is one that didn't look any good even on its best times.
Specifically, I do think they aren't correctly measuring their risks, so the gangs will fall, one by one, while all of them think they are making a great deal.
It would be interesting to see how their revenue progresses with time.
I'm super skeptical of this argument. My sense is that they'd just diversify into other industries and create their own black markets - and it seems they're already doing this.
Edit: I'm probably not being clear ... I don't disagree with your point. You're correct that they diversified. I just don't think it's wise to use that as a good proxy.
Indeed, though it's often paradoxically employed by some libertarians who advocate for full decriminalization.
A while back, Canada drastically raised the prices of cigarettes, and drive by shootings started up between the cigarette smugglers. It went away after quickly lowering the price again.
Drive by shootings also appeared during WW2 with gas rationing, and went away when rationing was ended.
Drugs are much different from gasoline. Gasoline is available everywhere and legal.
The cartels moving to gasoline is like the mafia moving from liquor during prohibition to other trades like racketeering, extortion, etc.
It perhaps signals that drugs are not so lucrative anymore.
Just FYI, not everyone on HN is from US.
Incredibly friendly people, great food and beautiful places.
Regarding violence, I find that most drug related violence stays contained within the cartel-world. Whilst in the US, random shootings are.. random..
Not that I feel unsafe in the US either though, the odds are pretty good that nothing will happen in either country.
(Most of my time in Mexico is spent in NL, Monterrey, and most of my time in the US near San Antonio, Texas. So I can't speak for either country in it's entirety of course)
What you are saying is astonishingly untrue.
https://crimeresearch.org/2017/04/number-murders-county-54-u...
But, my previous message might have indicated an idea of random shootings everywhere every day, which is not what I meant.
As mentioned, it is not that I feel unsafe in either country and I realise most parts are safe.
Thank you for the interesting link though!
Being on top of large criminal organization is intoxicating just like having power is.
To fight criminality and massive gains in black markets, the only way is to regulate and decriminalize black markets.
In the drug war for instance, compressing markets to a few players, especially in a black market where that is a natural reaction, only pressurizes the danger and leads to: mafias, violence, synthetics to get around legality, unsafe substances, people buying more dangerous substances or wrongly marked products such as opioids of safer types that are really fentanyl or carfentanil synthetics that are acutely more dangerous [1] and made in unsafe conditions, etc. The Controlled Substances Act and list run by the DEA is a cartel dream to create the margins they desire.
Prohibition of alcohol, a dangerous drug that is more dangerous illegal, should have taught this lesson, even back then alcohol was more dangerous to take when made in moonshine and other dangerous types as well as the mafias it created. It seems silly now to make shipping and producing alcohol legally and regulated illegal, no alcohol trafficking crimes happen today as a result of illegality.
> counties that enacted and enforced prohibition had homicide rates increase by about 30 to 60 percent relative to counties that did not enforce prohibition [2]
> When Prohibition was repealed in 1933, many bootleggers and suppliers simply moved into the legitimate liquor business. Some crime syndicates moved their efforts into expanding their protection rackets to cover legal liquor sales and other business areas. [2]
If something is dangerous, to add in more safety you need decriminalization and regulation on legal markets which handle safety much better. This adds in safe players into the game not just the underground black market criminal enterprises.
One day we maybe will learn that making non-violence a crime doesn't always make it safer, in most cases it makes it more dangerous. Though making something illegal or criminal when it is a health issue sure can increase profits on the underground at the expense of safety and harm reduction.
The hardline on opioids in the US, pressurizing doctors with liability and patients addicted that get cut off, they end up on their own and most of the overdoses today are people getting opioids they think are one thing and end up overdosing on fentanyl or carfentanil synthetics from the black market [3][4].
If people are addicted they should be able to get decriminalized opioids safely with the liability on them while they work to get off if they can, that will reduce overdose deaths by possibly half.
Hardline approaches to addiction do not work and it is not criminal, it is a health issue. However, making that illegal makes it not only a health issue, but also more dangerous due to the black market which leads to violence and deaths transforming this approach to a tragedy that we keep doubling down on.
To solve black markets you have to take the decriminalized/healthy/safety/peacekeeping/economic/market/opportunity approach over the force/illegality/hardline approach. Economic opportunities arise in legal regulated markets, safety and harm reduction increase in those markets. In some cases people don't want to turn to crime/black market but that is the better opportunity and may appear to provide more safety for their own survival.
Ultimately economic opportunities in legal/decriminalized markets win more than forceful approaches, because the latter make the criminal opportunity better. We need to take a smarter economic approach, end the war on drugs for instance and come into Mexico with a Marshall Plan like economic push that can help legal/investable markets which will provide more opportunity and everyone wins. You can't win a liberation with force, you need peacekeeping and economic opportunity.
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/6pvtlm/letheal_amount...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prohibition_in_the_United_Stat...
[3] https://www.kff.org/other/state-indicator/opioid-overdose-de...
[4] https://www.drugabuse.gov/related-topics/trends-statistics/o...
However, I think the overall situation is more complicated than that, as this article details. The organized crime cartels have many streams of revenue. There's nothing there to legalize in the case of activities like natural resource theft.
When you have a corrupt and weak state, criminals will see opportunity in preying on innocent civilians and companies through threat of violence.
Edit: Changed "There's nothing here to legalize." to "There's nothing there to legalize in the case of activities like natural resource theft." to clarify my statement.
True, however with less criminal opportunities due to more legal/decriminalized markets such as ending the drug wars, there are legal market opportunities to offset the draw to black market opportunities, and help stop theft and other crimes by reducing demand providing alternatives to make a safer good living.
Economic opportunities on legal markets need to be safer and comparative or better to the criminal opportunities/markets for any real change to be made.
Theft and any violent crime not related to non-violent markets like drugs that should be legal/decriminalized, those are real crimes that can be pursued as they take other's civil, human and property/ownership rights away.
Would there still be theft and other crimes? Sure but much less so if people had other routes to make money and survive.
Are referring to the U.S? This partially started when drugs found a market in U.S.
If you’re referring to Mexico, well we’re U.S. slave and a conservative country with a broken government. Maybe I just lost hope of my home country.
But if 12 headless people are found hanging from the town's main bridge, that's different, people will be scared.
Do people still voluntarily go on holiday in Mexico?
Certainly I'd be more afraid of my safety in many parts of most major US cities.
"Crime and violence are serious problems in Mexico and the security situation can pose a risk for foreigners"
"There have been a number of violent car-jackings and robberies along the Pacific Highway and you should be careful when travelling on this route. "
https://globalnews.ca/news/4171527/cancun-mexico-violence-tr...
"Canadians travel to Mexico more than any other country except the United States. But many visitors may be unaware of the growing violence in a main city that was once hailed as one of the country’s safest: Cancun. This week, five people were found dead near the public prosecutor’s office in the city on the Yucatán Peninsula, bringing the death toll by violence in the beach city to more than 100 since the beginning of the year."
Doesn't really sound like the kind of place I'll consider visiting any time soon. I like living in one of the safest places in the world, and I have no interest in going somewhere like this.
Just a quick google search..
I was in areas that had active gang wars between rival cartels, where gangs were driving around in technicals and that had razor wire up on the walls of the hotel I stayed at.
I never once felt like I was in danger, and I was going into way risky areas — comparatively speaking the resort areas are Disney land.
There’s no money and a lot of risk in fucking around with tourists. In fact in one town i went to in Guatemala was heavily implied that the locals murdered a guy that robbed a tourist so they wouldn’t risk the tourist dollars coming into town.
After my travels in Mexico and Latin America, I feel like statistics without proper context and sensationalist news do a big disservice to people. It's a lot more exciting and interesting to focus on pockets of areas where gang-on-gang violence is occurring. People would rather click on article to read about drug related news rather than a piece discussing the many great festivals coming up in Mexico City and around the country.
However, the reality is that life in the majority of the country is just like anywhere you'd imagine, sometimes fun, sometimes normal, and sometimes boring. The only danger being from purposefully looking for trouble or being very unlucky by being at the wrong place at the wrong time.
To put it in another way, someone can also ask why would anyone want to visit the US after all the news about gun violence? Why would anyone want to visit the US after reading about the crime in Detroit, Memphis, South Chicago, Baltimore, etc.
I've been to the US (including Detroit and Chicago) enough to know what it's really like and now understand the context better when reading news articles about crime and violence there.