The trial of a drug lord in Mexico: “El Rey – The King” Jose Martnez Zamabada
Fentanyl is so powerful, it can be smuggled in tiny quantities. If a single backpack full of the synthetic opioid reaches the U.S., it can feed the street demand in an entire region of the country.
Four years ago, the conviction of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzman Loera gave prosecutors many other threads to pull on the web of crime and corruption that enables the transnational drug trade.
Garcia Luna served as both the head of Mexico’s FBI and then in the president’s cabinet as secretary of Public Security. During his tenure, he met with U.S. officials and spoke at Washington think-tanks about fighting the “war on drugs.”
Felbab-Brown says that it would be difficult for the Mexican government to help the U.S. in the drug war because of the high level of corruption and Mafia ties in Mexico.
Drug traffickers held in the U.S. have testified about meeting a Guadalajara lawman and handing over $3m in cash, which was part of the plan to help fugitive drug lord El Chapo escape arrest.
The witness for Monday was the king, “El Rey – The King” Jess ” El Rey – The King”. A jury was shown a picture of what the duffle bags holding the millions in cash were like.
Zamabada described how paying about $1.5 million dollars per month to government officials allowed his men to integrate completely into Mexican law enforcement agencies – even wearing government uniforms as they raided rival cartels or made sure to escape raids themselves.
Why the U.S. DOJ is trying to Stop the Mexican Cartels, Fentanyl Crisis and Border Security: A Key Problem for the Trump-President Biden Administration
But defense lawyers have pointed out at every turn that the prosecution’s case is all hearsay – most of it from convicted narcotraffickers who have won great reductions in their prison sentences in exchange for their cooperation.
This trial is unfolding during at a time when the two major Mexican cartels, the Sinaloa Cartel and Jalisco New Generation (CJNG) have only grown in power and wealth.
Indeed, many U.S. officials and law enforcement now believe key Mexican leaders and police officials have been corrupted by the cartels money or intimidated by their growing military power.
Cienfuegos was arrested in Los Angeles in 2019, during the final months of Donald Trump’s presidency. But in a highly unusual move, charges against Cienfuegos were dropped and he was returned to Mexico.
Facing intense pressure from the government of President Manuel Lopez Obrador, the U.S. DOJ filed court documents unsealed in November 2020 stating that “foreign policy considerations outweigh the government’s interest in pursuing the prosecution of the defendant.”
“It’s a long slog. It is not possible to see results in a year or three years, according to the woman who served as acting director in the White House office of National Drug Control Policy.
“We’re not going to just throw up our hands and say it’s impossible,” she says. “Asking Mexico to do more seizures in the country is not going to happen.”
“There’s no doubt that a weak rule of law is one of Mexico’s biggest problems,” he said. That means that meth labs in Mexico operate with almost no pressure.
Republicans have made the Mexican cartels, the fentanyl crisis and border security into a major line of attack, arguing the Biden administration can do far more to stop traffickers.
In his speech this weekend, President Biden said he wanted to launch a “major surge” to stop Fentanyl production and sale that is killing 70, 000 people in the US every year.
Republicans responded with jeers and catcalls, but they have yet to offer a plan of their own for targeting fentanyl smugglers that experts say might significantly reduce the supply reaching American streets.
The synthetic opioid can be made far more cheaply than other drugs. It can be smuggled even in small quantities that are nearly impossible to detect.
Why the U.S. is so weak to take the lead on drug trafficking — Rep. Trone and a New Jersey Democrat
“My belief is there’s no way to stop the violence,” says Rep. Trone who is skeptical about the ability of Mexican officials to target the group.
But reporting by NPR found a broad consensus among drug policy experts that strategies now being put forward are unrealistic and won’t keep fentanyl off American streets.
As long as the old paradigms haven’t worked, both countries will not be moving the needle.
“You cannot tell us this border is secure when now there’s enough fentanyl in this country to kill every single American more than 20 times over,” the California Republican said. “This has all got to change. That’s what we’ll do, that’s our commitment.
“We work with our Mexican friends on this issue, and it is fundamentally wrong,” said the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman, a New Jersey Democrat. I don’t understand how many more lives need to be lost for Mexico to get engaged.
The flaw in the U.S. strategy is that the Mexican government is too weak to take on the cartels even if Washington exerts more diplomatic pressure.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/02/21/1158300583/fentanyl-smuggling-border-mexico-overdose-drug-war
The U.S. can’t go after Fentanyl, says Rep. Anatoly Sarukhan, the Mexican ambassador to the United States
Experts say there was an increase of Fentanyl smuggled in recent years. More than 50 million fake prescription pills and tens of thousands of pounds of Fentanyl were seized by the Drug Enforcement Administration over a three year period.
Sarukhan, Mexico’s former ambassador to the U.S., said only a handful of law enforcement agencies in his country are willing or able to engage with the powerful drug gangs.
The first time the U.S. can do anything about these drugs is when they cross the border, almost always passing through official checkpoints hidden in cars or commercial trucks driven by American citizens.
The drug is hard to detect and stop, which is why the President and others want to improve the technology.
Drug interdiction partnerships with the United States haven’t improved much since Mexico backed away from them during the Trump administration.
Drug Enforcement Administration agent can’t take down known fentanyl labs and get good intel from Mexican cops because of little cooperation at last week’s Senate hearing. “We are not getting information on fentanyl seizures; we are not getting information on seizures of precursor chemicals,” she acknowledged.
“Rather than demonstrate global leadership by engaging in efforts to rein in illicit precursor production and trafficking … During last week’s Senate hearing, Dr. Gupta testified that Beijing was instead choosing not to engage.
Some Republican governors, lawmakers and state Attorneys General are calling for the US government to designate the JalISCO and CENTOS organizations as a terrorist organization similar to the al- Qaeda and Islamic State groups.
The idea of missile strikes against drug laboratories in Mexico was entertained by the then President Donald Trump.
The Biden administration has resisted that kind of escalation, and Rep. Trone agrees that it would be a grave mistake. “We could do major raids in Mexico with our military [but] it’s not our country,” Trone said. It’s their country. They don’t want to go after the drug traffickers.