DEA: Most Illegal Drugs Enter via Mexico, Cartels Greatest Criminal Threat to U.S.

The Obama administration keeps reassuring Americans that the southern border is secure yet the overwhelming majority of illegal drugs in the United States come from Mexico and Mexican traffickers remain the greatest criminal threat to the United States.

This is nothing new and has been well documented for years in a variety of government audits, but the latest report, released this month by the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), comes as the administration insists the Mexican border is secure. How secure could it possibly be when Mexican cartels—classified as Transitional Criminal Organizations (TCOs) by the government—have for years smuggled in enormous quantities of heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine and marijuana? In fact, the DEA’s 2015 National Drug Threat Assessment reveals that Mexican cartels are in a class of their own, that “no other group can challenge them in the near term.”

They’re sophisticated operations that have been smuggling huge amounts of illicit drugs into the U.S. for some time. “These Mexican poly-drug organizations traffic heroin, methamphetamine, cocaine, and marijuana throughout the United States, using established transportation routes and distribution networks,” the DEA report states. “They control drug trafficking across the Southwest Border and are moving to expand their share of US illicit drug markets, particularly heroin markets. National-level gangs and neighborhood gangs continue to form relationships with Mexican TCOs to increase profits for the gangs through drug distribution and transportation, for the enforcement of drug payments, and for protection of drug transportation corridors from use by rival gangs.”

These enterprises have spread throughout the nation in major cities such as Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles and Philadelphia, according to the feds. Los Angeles is a key strategic hub to facilitate the movement of drugs north and west, according to the DEA report, and the city is also used for the “subsequent smuggling of drug proceeds in the form of bulk cash back to Mexico.” Boston is receiving cocaine directly from Mexican organizations based in Border States, the report says, and Mexican organizations dominate the wholesale distribution of cocaine, methamphetamine, Mexico-produced marijuana, and heroin.

It gets better; major Mexican cartels are actually operating in the United States, the DEA confirms, offering specific names in the report. They include the Beltran-Leyva Organization (BLO), New Generation Jalisco Cartel (Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generación or CJNG) the Los Cuinis, Gulf Cartel (Cartel del Golfo or CDG), Juarez Cartel, Michoacán Family (La Familia Michoacána or LFM), Knights Templar (Los Caballeros Templarios or LCT), Los Zetas, and the renowned Sinaloa Cartel. This certainly seems to indicate that the southern border is extremely vulnerable.

It appears that this will not change in the near future. The DEA, which functions under the Department of Justice (DOJ), predicts that “Mexican TCOs will continue to dominate the trafficking of heroin, methamphetamine, cocaine, and marijuana throughout the United States.” Here’s why: “There are no other organizations at this time with the infrastructure and power to challenge Mexican TCOs for control of the US drug market,” the DEA claims. “Mexican TCOs will continue to serve primarily as wholesale suppliers of drugs to the United States to distance themselves from US law enforcement. Mexican TCOs will continue to rely on US-based gangs to distribute drugs at the retail level.”

Mexican drug cartels have long benefitted from our susceptible southern border and the situation is more serious than ever because traffickers have joined forces with Middle Eastern terrorists to enter the U.S. Earlier this year Judicial Watch broke a story detailing how smugglers (“coyotes”) working for the Juárez Cartel help move ISIS terrorists through the desert and across the border between Santa Teresa and Sunland Park, New Mexico. To the east of El Paso and Ciudad Juárez, cartel-backed “coyotes” also smuggle ISIS terrorists through the porous border between Acala and Fort Hancock, Texas. JW’s high-level government sources say these specific areas were targeted for exploitation by ISIS because of their understaffed municipal and county police forces and the relative safe-havens the areas provide for the unchecked large-scale drug smuggling that was already ongoing.