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ORGANISED CRIME:
THE DARK SIDE OF
GLOBALISATION
By H. E. Eduardo Medina-Mora
I
t’s been said that organised crime is the dark side of globalisation. No country alone is responsible for the
problem; in fact, each State plays a role in the entire global criminal puzzle. Nevertheless, drug trafficking
always targets and hits locally, in every corner of our societies, threatening and even destroying what is
most precious for every person: health, family, happiness and ultimately life.
Everyday, somewhere, organised crime shapes human tragedy.
Everyday, somewhere, someone’s beloved daughter has a “good
time” snorting cocaine, thinking it’s not a vice. If a fashion model
does it, if a singer does it, if an actress does it, she can do it too,
“nothing will happen, it’s under control”, a cool sign of what life is
all about, a fast forward button for fun.
Everyday, somewhere, someone’s son, a young man who never
had any money to get what he wanted, abandoned by his father,
whose mother spent her life between drinking and trying -over
and over again- to find a replacement for the love she lost, gets
tired of life as he knows it, follows the path of least resistance and
becomes a member of some gang, as the shortcut to grab a slice
of his dream life, full of people who respect and support him, a
way to instant cash for gadgets, girls and of course, relief from the
odds always against him. A fast forward button for a new life.
Everyday, somewhere in a frontier there is someone’s father, a hard
working man whose kids have grown up and need more attention,
designer clothes, clubbing or a car. The fashion trends change
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faster than what a truck driver can keep up with. One day he
decides to transport across an extra load of something he doesn’t
want to know. As he is able to provide his family with glimpses
of a life he could only dream of before, he decides to follow the
beat of ambition and transports a full shipment of something he
pretends he doesn’t know, he tells himself he is no drug dealer or
criminal, he is only transporting something, nothing will happen. A
fast forward button for happiness.
Everyday, somewhere, someone’s husband, a peasant who
inherited a fertile land that has produced coffee, corn and
vegetables sees how others acquire more houses, lands and
vehicles, instead of going through dire straits to keep their house
and land producing. They are also putting him out of business. It’s
been long since he saw a politician, a police car or a public servant
around there. No one comes to town, nothing has happened and
nothing will. He starts growing coca leafs and his business breaths
fresh air, he doesn’t want to do that forever, it’s just a temporary
boost, a small help to float again. He can quit whenever he wants.
A fast forward button out of poverty.
Everyday, somewhere, someone’s relative
or friend is a producer, transporter,
distributor or consumer of drugs. Everyday,
somewhere, someone becomes a part of
one of the stages of the drug cycle. They
often get caught in real-life common
situations we can well relate to and instead
of doing what’s right, they try a shortcut, a
fast forward way in or out of something.
Today, there is an
evident and urgent
need for a global
cause against
organised crime.
The drug cycle reproduces, feeds, and
multiplies itself efficiently and viciously. The drug cycle procreates
human tragedy, greed, violence, crime, and death. Drugs destroy
the lives of those who consume them, feed upon the street gangs
that distribute them, arm dangerous cartels that traffic them, and
generate bloody wars among those who grow them. In fact, drugs
are a weapon of mass destruction.
Drug trafficking is a global crime extending rapidly throughout
Latin America, affecting Eastern Europe, North Africa, the Middle
East and some regions in Asia. North America, Europe and all
OECD countries are major consumption and distribution centres
as is almost every country on the planet. Organised crime is
a common problem in societies with distinct economic and
social development, with unique institutional entities, and with
contrasting processes of law and order.
And no, poverty does not justify or explain organised crime.
There is no direct relation between poverty and insecurity.
Nicaragua is the second poorest country in the Americas and
the third most secure one in the continent. Venezuela’s social
spending is enormous and security there is rapidly worsening
while organised crime operations are widening. Poverty only may
contribute to bad things happening but is not the central factor
behind criminal activity.
Urban middle-class growth triggers an increase in drugs
consumption. In Brazil and Mexico we have seen in recent years,
a raise in the sophisticated middle-class, an increase on family
income across the board and, thus, a boost in drugs consumption.
Cartels are a fragmented violent enemy that generates disordered
violence through multiple groups combating each other and
attacking the State and society at the same time.
The most violent non-war region in the world is neither the
US-Mexico border nor anywhere within Mexico. It is the
Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras corridor. Last year, Mexico
had 11.5 intentional homicides per every hundred thousand
inhabitants, while Guatemala and El Salvador had 50 each and
Honduras 61 killings. One is too many. That is clear for me. But
it is also important to understand the relative dimension of the
problem and also its trends and geographical concentrations.
Colombia, Venezuela and Brazil have higher violence rates than
Mexico, but Colombia is in a downturn trend while in Mexico,
Brazil and Venezuela violence is on the rise. Washington DC
and New Orleans for example, have higher rates than the
average of Mexico.
Everyday, somewhere, some public
servant, a police officer, a prosecutor or a
judge decides not to arrest someone, not
to see something, not to pursuit a case
or not to punish a crime in exchange for
a taste of drug money that fast forwards
something, perverting the very essence
of public service, weakening the rule
of law, diminishing governance and
damaging institutions.
Everyday, somewhere, those using drugs do not acknowledge
that, as recently put by the Chief of the Colombian Police: they
are snorting the rain forest and probably killing a police officer
or a law abiding citizen, with every line of cocaine they snort or
every joint they smoke. The relation between drugs and death is
that shocking.
Since organised crime is a global puzzle, no country alone can
solve it. Criminals use “host nations” because they are good
for business when their institutions are weak and law is not
enforced. But if States fight criminals, they shift their operations
to another place.
The fact that 9 out of 10 killings in Mexico are the result of fights
among the cartels, illustrates the drug trafficking organizations
unfolding self-destruction process that deepens when the State
fights them. In Medellin, cartels self destroyed when Government’s
enforcement overwhelmed them. Such process fragments the
criminal groups and makes them rely on more ambitious, less
experienced marginal personnel, recruited amid the heat of State’s
pursuit, thus increasing their violence and accelerating their selfdestruction cycle.
Going after individuals who break the law is not enough, because
we are not addressing the specific reasons why they break the
law, and why they do it in a particular manner. With such massive
amounts of money and power, the individual deterrent provided
by criminal punishment is not enough. There is always someone
willing to run the risk.
Organised criminals, unlike terrorists, are not loyal to any twisted
version of an ideology or a religion. Their aim and only motivation
is money. For them is a business. To have a real impact on drug
trafficking, we have to visualize it as a business that we want to
destroy. By seeing drug smuggling activities from the business
point of view, we can increase their opportunity cost, take away
any advantage they can find in our territory, and diminish their
power to corrupt.
There is also an urgent need to rethink our materialistic society
and its concept of success. When vanity, luxury and money
are the central values of society, greed becomes the engine of
organised crime and the motivation for armies of poor people to
succumb to criminal activities. Greed fuels the temptation of taking
shortcuts and make people pressing the fast forward button to a
never-ending destructive cycle, that takes away their dignity and
ultimately their humanity and life.
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We have to find a way to strengthen the social fabric, moral values
and generate self-control in our societies to fight the temptations
our economies and consumption-fashion-driven cultures foster.
It is mandatory to strengthen security, political and social
institutions, particularly at the local level of government. This is
a critical national security issue in Mexico, Colombia and Central
America -among other nations- but it cannot be written off in
the United States as there are over one million gang members
organised in over 20 thousand criminal groups involved in retail
drug distribution. The memories of the so called crack wars may
not be that far away.
In 2001 the world decided to stand firm against terrorism. Today,
there is an evident and urgent need for a global cause against
organised crime. Criminals do not hesitate to kill innocent people
to accomplish their immoral goals and societies shouldn’t wait
for violence to move their will to enforce the law. The price for
inaction is given in human currency and it is a painful price the
world does not need to pay. ■
***
H.E. Eduardo Medina-Mora is Ambassador of Mexico in the
United Kingdom. He has been Mexico’s Attorney-General (20062009), Minister of Public Security (2005-2006) and Director of
If the demand for drugs does not change, drugs, as water, will
always find their course; they will find the path of least resistance.
ANALYSIS: The Genesis
of the Mexican Drug Wars
the CISEN (2000-2005, Mexico’s civilian Intelligence and National
Security Agency).
By George Adelman
The Latin American drug trade has a longer history than is often
and subordinates to vie over control of increasing shares of the
acknowledged. Bolstered by the US prohibition laws of the
business, he called for greater solidarity against the common
early 20th Century, including the 1909 Opium Exclusion Act,
threat of US counternarcotics operations and for the division of
1914 Harrison Narcotics Law and 1920 Prohibition of Alcohol,
the enterprise into separate regional smuggling ‘corridors’. This
the primitive export trade became increasingly profitable and
territorial strategy gave birth to most of the main drug trafficking
sophisticated under its newfound illicit status. The major expansion
organisations (DTOs) that we see today in Tijuana, Sinaloa-Sonora,
of the drug trade came in the 1960s, when the demand for
Juarez, and the Gulf States, who are reportedly responsible for up
psychotropic drugs in the United States rose dramatically and the
to 70% of all narcotics that enter into the United States.
relative openness of the international border allowed for low-cost,
low-risk transhipment. In an emerging market Mexico became
Though the regionalisation of the DTOs was based on a policy
a major supplier of marijuana and brown heroin, with drug
of non-interference and cooperation, they soon descended
operations performed by small groups or gangs and controlled for
into competition and ultimately conflict with new and dynamic
the most part by a handful of families. It was the cocaine trade,
organisations, such as Los Zetas, joining the fray. Much of the
however, that proved the most lucrative, with the Colombian
violence would appear to be a product of territorial conflict
traffickers (most notably Escobar’s Medellin Cartel) enjoying a near-
between DTOs or as a means of punishment, revenge and
complete monopoly, moving huge quantities of drugs through the
intimidation against the State and each other. Use of force is
Caribbean to America.
typically subcontracted to enforcer groups, for instance hit men
like the ‘Sicarios’, and gangs, such as the Peleones and MS-13,
The Colombian Cartels’ success is said to have inspired Mexican
who are also key to the movement and distribution of the drugs
drug-trafficker, Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo, to amalgamate the
from Central America to the United States. Pressure has been
family-run smuggling syndicates within Mexico into a singular
placed on recent Mexican administrations to show commitment
organisation, La Familia, which proceeded to dominate Latin
to battling the cartels, largely through the punitive, interdiction
American marijuana and heroin trafficking in the late 1970s. At the
policies conveyed in the 2007 Mérida Initiative. This US-led plan
beginning of the 1980s the US implemented a series of crackdown
pledged a budget of $1.4billion (including $700million to Mexico)
operations in the Caribbean and import states such as Florida
to combat the drug trade, largely in the form of military aid,
to stem the flow of cocaine, forcing the Colombian traffickers
hi-tech surveillance and IT systems. During this period President
to find new smuggling routes, and in La Familia they found a
Calderón stepped up his assault on the DTOs by deploying the
fully-established and efficient smuggling operation. Together the
military (approximately 30,000 soldiers) and federal police to
two organisations formed a formidable cartel that dominated the
the drug war hotspots. Official figures released by The Mexican
American drug-trade throughout the 1980s.
government’s official figures in August 2010 record the number of
drug-related murders at more than 28000 since 2006.
Felix Gallardo’s arrest in 1989 did little to damage what had
become an incredibly profitable industry and such was his power
he remained able to oversee and conduct operations from
***
within prison. Nevertheless, aware that his detention had left
George Adelman is Programme Assistant for the LSE IDEAS Latin
a power vacuum in the organisation, causing his compatriots
America International Affairs Programme.
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