Mexico: OE Watch - Cartels Clone Company Vehicles

Mexico - Cartels Clone Company Vehicles

MEXICO

1 June 2012

Cartels Clone Company Vehicles


Company vehicles like AT&T and UPS, as well as official Border Patrol
vehicles are used for smuggling drugs and people. Photo by Texas Departmetn
of Public Safety

Source: "Cárteles "Clonan" Autos de Compañías (Cartels Clone Company
Vehicles)," El Universal, 01 June 2012.
http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/nacion/197096.html

FMSO Commentary: Mexican organized criminal groups have been masters at
making replica contraband for decades. They have widely diversified
operations in a wide variety of forms in order to maximize profit potential
from almost every angle. From selling imitation brand-name clothing, purses,
and accessories, to pirated CDs/DVDs, to cloning official Mexican military
and law enforcement vehicles in order to conduct extortions and more, this
is not a new modus operandi for these groups.

...

There have additionally been recent reports that the transnational criminal
organizations (TCOs)/cartels are looking to establish a "zone of impunity"
on the U.S. side of the U.S.-Mexican border in order to conduct operations
more effectively and efficiently. A September 2011 El Paso Times article
alleged that the wife of a high-level Los Zetas member holds a
non-law-enforcement job with the DEA in Las Cruces, New Mexico; this may be
just one of many similar cases in an effort to further and establish this
zone in a more expeditious manner. With the addition of cloning U.S. law
enforcement and other national company vehicles and operating them on U.S.
soil, the Mexican TCOs are definitely taking a large risk and making a bold
statement in an apparent effort to turn the U.S.'s southwest border into an
extension of the region of perceived impunity in which they operate in
Mexico's northern states. End FMSO Commentary (Scheidel)

Read more:
http://fmso.leavenworth.army.mil/Archives/GSW/Current/current.html#Is
Contract Killing Cheaper in Mexico?