'Scarface' For Real On The Border

I’ve been documenting the Mexican drug cartels and their operations in Mexico and the U.S. on film and in print for the past four years. I’ve contributed to magazines, newspapers and presented segments on network news, I’ve written a book on the subject and meet regularly with intelligence agents from every three lettered agency in the alphabet. I’ve had a front row seat to one of the most violent and brutal uprisings in the history of our two countries and still I am amazed that so few people, especially within our government comprehend this problem and haven’t a clue as to the true effects it is having on our own society, economy and geopolitical landscape.

The flow of illicit narcotics into the United States from Mexico is nothing new and neither is the fact that the Mexican DTO’s (Drug Trafficking Organizations) are running the entire show. Up until recently it was believed that they were earning somewhere in the neighborhood of $40 billion dollars a year from that enterprise and for the past two decades the U.S. government has been content with the lackluster results of their interdiction efforts evidenced by the fact that nothing has really changed in that time span.

But lately it seems something has finally got certain branches of our government worried and when viewed in its totality, it should worry us all; in fact, when you have seen the vision that these highly organized, well financed DTO’s have for their future, not only will you be concerned, but if you care for this country, it will scare the hell out of you.

This is the kind of stuff you see in the movies-but even “Scarface” had an ending.

I’m going to be writing in an effort to paint this picture for all to see. I do my reporting from the frontlines because I spend about two to three weeks out of every month in Mexico and along our border.

I’ve had the opportunity to get at close range to some of the most powerful drug trafficking organizations in the world. Whether that has been a blessing or a curse remains to be seen, but nonetheless, it has given me insight into a situation that is not only dangerous, but frightening–to see first hand what they are successfully doing with the money, power and influence they are amassing by selling their wares to our own people and around the world.

The men who run these organizations are not a bunch of coked out cowboys slinging their pistols in the air as they party day and night. No, these are intelligent, educated men with the resources to surround themselves with some of the sharpest minds on the planet. They run global, multi-billion dollar businesses that operate around the clock, around the world. They know the power of knowledge. They have the latest in technologies and weaponry, they use satellites for communications and surveillance. They employ their own private armies–fully trained and armed to teeth–in order to protect their operations.

Narco-terrorism is alive and well, not just along our border but all over the U.S.

Want proof? Last week 750 operatives from the Sinaloa cartel were taken down in over 120 cities across the country. Before that, last fall, 500 operatives working for the Gulf cartel were arrested in an operation spanning the south. That’s 1,250 narco-terrorists operating on American soil, receiving their instructions from Mexico, all arrested here in the last six months.

In the coming weeks, I’ll be writing in much more detail about the interviews I’m gathering from ordinary citizens who are caught in the cross-fire of daily cartel hits–family members of kidnapped children, teachers who are being extorted by the cartels, hospital staff who are afraid to do their jobs because when a wounded cop or criminal is brought to their hospital the cartels send a hit squad in to finish the job right in front of doctors and nurses…

I’ll share stories of cops who are afraid of doing their job because even though they don’t work for the cartels, their bosses do, so when they are sent out to do a job, they don’t know if they are doing it for their government or the cartel.

The bottom line is that there is no governmental force in control of the Juarez corridor, but what’s worse is that there is no single cartel in control either, making this region the most dangerous place to be in the Western Hemisphere.

The American public has little clue what the effects of narco-terrorism looks like. Mexico itself has not yet failed, but Juarez has, and it is happening 1100 feet from our border.