Borderland Beat: Cousins on trial in Memphis as hit men for Sinaloa Cartel and Craig Petties

Bottom Line Up Front, it appears this articles serves one of the best examples of Mexican Drug Cartel and US Gang Collusion in the worst way.  Visit the link at the bottom for full details.

Excerpt:

The cousins are alleged to have been hitmen for the Craig Petties gang which grew to a huge drug trafficking empire in 5 states, importing drugs from Sinaloa I have included backstory information following the main post, if you are unfamiliar with Petties it is an intriguing tale....Paz, Chivis

The article also noted, one of these purported criminals has familial ties with a member of a well-known US rap group which coincidentally sings about “drug-trafficking and murder”. 

Comment:  So you have the drug angle, the gang angle and the societal angle (music influencing teenagers) impacting American society to consider.  When the social fabric of society deteriorates, chaos will likely follow.

Visit:  Borderland Beat: Cousins on trial in Memphis as hit men for Sinaloa Cartel and Craig Petties

Turning Point? Mexico’s Drug War

Stratfor just posted an interesting assessment on 15Feb12 that identified what they consider a possible turning point in Mexico’s drug war.

 

Excerpt:

Mexican criminal organizations can overcome their weakness in the cocaine market by investing the money they have earned (billions of dollars, according to the most conservative estimates) into the control of other markets. Ultimately, cocaine is impossible for the Mexicans to control because the coca plant can only grow in sufficient quantity in the foothills of the Andes. It would be prohibitively expensive for the Mexicans to take over control of coca cultivation and cocaine production there. Mexican criminal organizations are increasing their presence in the heroin market, but while they can grow poppies in Mexico and produce black-tar heroin, Afghanistan still controls a dominant share of the white heroin market -- around 90 percent.

What Mexicans can control is the methamphetamine market. What we are seeing in Mexico right now -- unprecedented amounts of the seized drug -- is reminiscent of what we saw over the past century in the infancy of the illegal liquor, gambling, heroin and cocaine markets: an organized criminal group industrializing production in or control of a loosely organized industry and using that control to set prices and increase its power. Again, while illegal methamphetamine has been produced in the United States for decades, regulatory pressure and law enforcement efforts have kept it at a small scale; seizures are typically measured in pounds or kilograms and producers are on the run.

 

Read the full article:  Meth in Mexico: A Turning Point in the Drug War?

Conflict Mitigation - “What Matters: Big data, small wars, local insights: Designing for development with conflict-affected communities” By David Kilcullen and Alexa Courtney

Comment:   This article serves as a mental tool to aid in the planning and engagement with various forms of conflict and fractured locations.  Whether one is dealing with criminal gangs of Los Angeles and Houston, the Drug Cartels of Mexico or other areas prone to various forms of low-intensity conflict/people wars in the Mid-East or Africa, it is the governments ability to effectively connect with its people that will increase the chances of securing a region.

While armies and security forces are good, real security comes from the people and their willingness and ability to work in concert with its government to achieve an acceptable form of stability.  Additionally, the population should be leveraged for purposes of developing an enhanced situational awareness regarding events on the ground.  The excerpt and link to the full article seem to reinforce this and is very much worth reading.

David Kilcullen is a world respected authority on conflict and conflict mitigation. If you ever have the opportunities to attend any of his speaking engagements, you will surely not be wasting time.  I personally consider him the modern day David Galula 2.0.

 

Excerpt: 

Problem solvers working amid the overlapping challenges posed by conflict—resource inequity, poverty, fragile governance, environmental damage, and disease—need imagination and integrative thinking skills. Development professionals, designers, and communities need to be the joint architects of social, economic, and political change. A design approach to development emphasizes communities’ experience and unique perspectives, informed by rigorous analysis.

Designing for development in this way, truly putting local people at the center of a design process that seeks to optimize their experience, we believe, is the best path to overcoming the threat that conflict poses to social, political, and economic development.

Source/Link to full article:  What Matters: Big data, small wars, local insights: Designing for development with conflict-affected communities

Resource: Law Enforcement & Security Consulting - A Must Read Site, Blog and Twitter

This site is a must read for those in Law Enforcement, counter-gang, special task forces, the Military or other fields where one has to get front and personal with people for myriad reasons. Fred Leland's Law Enforcement & Security Consulting is a site that provides readers valuable mental tools to take to the street…life saving mental tools to improve and sustain mental agility in chaotic and rapidly changing environments.

Mr Leland's site information is:

http://www.lesc.net/

Read the LESC blog: blog.lesc.net
Connect with us on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/fredleland
Follow us on Twitter: www.Twitter.com/lescnet
Friend us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/fredleland

Here are some sample Twitter links.

· Interacting Tactfully and Tactically: Is This a Strategy, Law Enforcement Can Use? bit.ly/x0t3W7 via @AddThis

· Musings On Iraq: interview with Jerry Burke The Ups and Downs of Training the Iraqi Police Force ow.ly/91qzf

· Interacting Tactfully and Tactically: Is This a Strategy, Law Enforcement Can Use? ow.ly/90UrZ

· Emotion verses Strategy: Which Helps You Gain the Position of Advantage? ow.ly/90eSj #lawenforcement

· Great intro article on body language and threat cues by Fred Leland:bit.ly/yRFdQc

· "It Never Happens Here" So WHY Do We Train? | Law Enforcement & Security Consulting: bit.ly/znlibd via @AddThis

· Finished up Dangerous Body language workshop & Recognizing the Signs and Signals of Crime and Danger ow.ly/8Upjz

· Links to Dangerous Body Language essays, articles and books.ow.ly/8Up67

Subverting Mexico - Mexico Cartels Paid Millions for Political Favors

11Feb12
Mexico Cartels Paid Millions for Political Favors
VOA News
Key Point:
- U.S. Drug Enforcement officials filed court documents in U.S. District Court in San Antonio, Texas. The documents stated 4.5 million dollars was paid by Mexican drug cartel leaders to purchase the loyalties of Mexican government and political officials with ties to Mexico’s Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI).
Comment: This is an example of “Cold Revolutionary Warfare” as noted by the late counterinsurgency warfare expert, David Galula in the 1960s. This is noted in chapter 4, page 43 (see below). Cold Revolutionary Warfare is when an insurgent leverages legal mechanisms in a nonviolent manner in order to overthrow/circumvent/overthrow any challenges to their interests by counterinsurgent or counter-criminal elements.

Sources:
http://www.voanews.com/english/news/Mexico-Cartels-Paid-Millions-for-Political-Favors-139148569.html; accessed 11Feb12
http://books.google.com/books?id=U0JJ5fbLVU4C&q=cold+revolutionary+warfare#v=snippet&q=cold%20revolutionary%20warfare&f=false; accessed 11Feb12

Resource/Link: Alexandra Natapoff at Informant Hearing

Comment: Much of COIN, Low-Intensity Conflicts, Stability Operations, counter-gang, counter-organized crime efforts...whatever one wants to call them... relies heavily on the use of informants.

The site addresses legal/moral challenges of leveraging human sources...criminals don't necessarily worry about these concerns as they simply choose the most profitable path of least resistance to meet the endstate. The exception is one is forced to work against a personal loyalty or interest.

These challenges can be found in environments such as organized crime (Mexico), nation building efforts (Afghanistan) to counter-gang efforts (US/Overseas).

Visit: Alexandra Natapoff at Informant Hearing: http://youtu.be/Mav9tOvmWcQ via @youtube ; also visit http://www.snitching.org/resources to vignettes.

Mexican Drug War Annual Death Toll Numbers Still Confusing, but Late 2011 Total Toll Numbers Remain Consistent at near 50K

Source:  http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/news/2012/01/26/zetas-now-mexicos-biggest-cartel-report-says/

 

As of 26Jan12, FOXNEWs/STRATFOR numbers stated the Mexican government reported 12,903 people were killed in 2011, for a total of "47,515" killed beginning in 2006.

 

However, multiple sources indicate the numbers for 2011 may be significantly higher, but with the overall total remaining the same as noted here:  http://www.mexdrugcartels.com/2012/01/mexican-drug-cartel-situation-report_26.html . 

 

This is based on the following source information:

Sources: 

McCaffrey, Barry.  After Action Report – General Barry R McCaffrey USA (Ret) VISIT MEXICO – 507 DECEMBER 2008. 29Dec08.http://www.mccaffreyassociates.com/pdfs/Mexico_AAR_-_December_2008.pdf; Accessed 25Jan12

Finklea, Kristin, William Krouse and Mark Randol.  Congressional Research Service:  Southwest Border Violence: Issues in Identifying and Measuring Spillover Violence.  25Jan11. http://opencrs.com/document/R41075/. Accessed 25Jan12.

Smith, Phillip.  Mexico 2010 Death Toll Higher Than Afghanistan. 3Jan11.http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2011/jan/03/mexico_2010_death_toll_higher_af. Accessed 25Jan12.

Cave, Damien.  Mexico Updates Death Toll in Drug War to 47,515, but Critics Dispute the Data.  11Jan12.http://www.borderlandbeat.com/2012/01/mexico-updates-death-toll-in-drug-war.html.  Accessed 25Jan12