Pipeline theft in Mexico rose 52% in 2015, according to an Associated Press report. The spike came after a43.7% annual increase in 2014, according to asustainability report by Pemex, Mexico’s state-owned oil company. And while the northeast section of the country — the site of competition between the vicious Zetas and Gulf cartels — was…
Category: Central/South America
Cartel Corner #78: The Rise of Mexican Black Tar Heroin
As the rate of opioid addiction has surged in the United States, Mexico has become the world’s third-largest producer of opium used to process heroin. Mexican cartels are now the primary suppliers of the drug to the US, producing a crude and unrefined form known as black tar. VICE News travels to the fertile mountains…
Modern Crime: The Golden Age of Drug Trafficking
Diplomats and top officials from governments around the world gathered last week at United Nations headquarters in New York to discuss what to do about the global drug problem. Over the course of four days and multiple discussions, the assembled dignitaries vowed to take a more comprehensive approach to the issue than in years past…
Cartel Corner #75: Cuban Ship Busted Hauling 900 lbs. of Cocaine
Castro has had his hands in narco-trafficking since the early days as a means to both fill his coffers and arm Communist left wing guerilla insurgencies in latin america and around the world. But Obama supports and recognizes him anyway. -SF Nearly 900 pounds of cocaine was found Thursday on a Cuban ship in Panama…
Cold War Files: JFK’s Plan to Invade Cuba with Airborne and Marines
Over the weekend I was looking through some handwritten notes in the papers of Gen. Lyman Lemnitzer, placed on-line by the National Defense University. The document is undated and unsigned. The NDU catalog lists it as created by Lemnitzer, who was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff early in the JFK era, until Kennedy…
Cartel Corner #68 : “Narconomics”
How The Drug Cartels Operate Like Wal-Mart And McDonald’s When Tom Wainwright became the Mexico correspondent for The Economist in 2010, he found himself covering the country’s biggest businesses, including the tequila trade, the oil industry and the commerce of illegal drugs. “I found that one week I’d be writing about the car business, and…
Cold War Files: Military Records on U.S. Role in Run-up to 1976 Argentine Military Coup to be De-Classified
President Barack Obama will move to declassify U.S. military and intelligence records related to Argentina‘s “Dirty War,” the White House said Thursday, aiming to bring closure to questions of U.S. involvement in a notorious chapter in Argentina’s history. Obama’s visit to Buenos Aires next week coincides with the 40th anniversary of the 1976 military coup…
Cartel Corner #67: Juarez Cartel Bankrolling Politicians Re-Election Through Shell Companies
What is really amazing to me is the number of people out there who think type of thing ONLY goes on in Mexico and Central and South America. The big difference in the U.S. is the “Cartels” are called Corporations. -SF An in-depth investigation has revealed that through the use of shell companies, members of…
Border Security: The Legacy of Pancho Villa’s Raid on America
Ever since “Black Jack” Pershing rode into Mexico to hunt for Pancho Villa, the United States started a pattern of personalizing Latin American security threats. In the words of one U.S. cavalry officer, Columbus, New Mexico in 1916 was little more than “a cluster of adobe houses, a hotel, a few stores and streets knee…
The Rise of the Hybrid Warriors: From Ukraine to the Middle East
The Iraqi Army defenders of Ramadi had held their dusty, stony ground for over a year and become familiar with the increasing adeptness of their opponents waving black flags. At first, these Iraqi Army units simply faced sprayed rifle fire, but then it was well-placed sniper rounds that forced these weary units to keep under…