| Summary Antidrug
gains and shifting markets have forced change on the illicit cocaine
industry in Latin America. The disruption of the Cali and Medellin mafias
has led to the formation of more diverse trafficking groups. Resistance to
the Andean narcotics "airbridge" through air interdiction efforts over Peru
has caused the large-scale, and perhaps permanent, shift in coca production
to neighboring Colombia. Colombia’s growing self-sufficiency in coca
derivatives and a continued strong European demand for cocaine have helped
spur an increase in finished drug processing and export from Bolivia that,
in turn, have made Brazil and the Southern Cone countries more important to
international drug movements.
• The US interdiction focus along the southwest border has led Mexican
kingpin organizations to adjust their smuggling methods and to a revival in
Colombian interest in moving drugs through the Caribbean.
• The resurgence in consumer interest in heroin has led traffickers in
Colombia and Mexico to expand their product lines into opiates—most all of
which are US bound. REDACTED WORD
Such changes collectively reflect progress by the United States and its
allies in the region in disrupting the activities of cocaine criminals –
some of whom are changing fundamentally the way they do business.
Nonetheless, the highly adaptive industry remains robust and prosperous, and
the availability of cocaine to drug consumers so far has been little
altered. The changes, moreover, are producing an industry that is less well
known to antidrug forces and thus more resilient to their routine pressures.
• Several critical intelligence gaps may make the pace of recent
counternarcotics successes difficult to sustain, and efforts to till gaps
could at least temporarily force anti-drug units to divert their time and
attention away from direct actions against traffickers.
REDACTED WORD
Shifting Coca and Cocaine Production
REDACTED WORD
Air interdiction efforts and the disruption of the Call drug mafia have
dramatically upset the normal production and marketing process for Andean
coca derivatives. The collapse of Peru’s coca economy has forced abandonment
of many farms there, only to be offset by exploding new cultivation in
Colombia at plantations notable for their larger size and use of modern
agricultural practices. Because of the shift, Colombia for the first time
has surpassed Peru as the largest cultivator nation. Colombian
self-sufficiency for coca and a strong European demand have forced Bolivian
traffickers to step up production of finished cocaine for export; they are
being aided by significant new coca plantings that have offset much of
Bolivia’s near-record crop eradication results.
REDACTED WORD
Collapsing Coca Production in Peru. The air interdiction surge in
Peru, which began in March 1995, has disrupted the ability of Colombian drug
traffickers to obtain reliable supplies of coca derivatives from Peru.
Peruvian attacks on suspected drug-carrying planes have provided a strong
disincentive to narcotics pilots, even though the traffickers
correspondingly have offered them more money to offset the dangers,
REDACTED WORDS As a result of
the disruptions, the Peruvian coca supply has become less reliable to
Colombian traffickers, and those seeking to meet their own cocaine
commitments abroad are almost certainly turning to more reliable local
suppliers of coca derivatives. The corresponding decline in Colombian
purchases in Peru has caused a glut in coca products there, which have sold
for near-record-low prices.
The decline in Colombian purchasing has devastated Peru’s once-booming
coca economy, spurring sizable farmer migrations from the principal
cultivation areas. This trend has led to a substantial decline in Peruvian
coca production.
REDACTED PARAGRAPH
The impact of interdiction on Peru’s coca economy may have reached its
peak, however. Coca prices are rising again and in recent months have
reached what the US Embassy says is the profitability threshold for
small-scale farmers for the first time since the current interdiction surge
began. The rise is most likely the result of a too rapid cultivation decline
for current demand levels; the drop has been enough that available leaf has
fallen in short supply and is therefore more valuable. If prices continue at
profitable levels, we believe the rapid abandonment of coca fields will slow
or halt in coming months.
• Peru’s resumption of mature crop eradication in 1996 after a seven-year
hiatus is having only marginal impact on the coca supply.
REDACTED WORDS Peru
eradicated only about 5 percent of its 1997 coca crop, and a considerable
portion of that reportedly destroyed was abandoned or otherwise
unproductive. REDACTED WORD
While future price rises could slow further field abandonment, they are
unlikely to reverse quickly the damage already inflicted to Peru’s coca
economy. According to press reports, many of the farmers who have abandoned
their fields have returned to native lands outside coca producing zones in
search of alternative employment. Imagery, moreover, shows that many
abandoned fields are overgrown, and substantial labor would be required to
return them to full productive capacity. Soil depletion from years of
cultivating the same land would make refurbishing some former farms
undesirable at any rate and thus would compel many returning farmers to
plant anew; those that do so would earn no income until newly planted bushes
reached productive maturity in about two years.
• Many of these farmers would be unlikely to risk the expense or
uncertainty of returning to coca production unless they became convinced
that coca prices would escalate to past highs and stay above the cost of
production for an extended period.
• Because of Colombian cultivation increases, the Colombian mafias would
be unlikely to repeat their past practice of providing seedlings and loaning
cash to peasants to encourage them to start new coca farms.
Exploding New Growth in Colombia. The reluctance of Colombian
traffickers to depend on an unreliable Peruvian coca supply has been a
critical factor in an explosive increase in cultivation in Colombia.
REDACTED WORDS the area
planted in coca increased by 18 percent, to 79,500 hectares, which was
preceded by an even bigger increase of 32 percent in 1996. Major increases
have come despite the aggressive use of herbicides by Colombian police – the
only such force in the Andes to eradicate drug crops by air. Unlike those in
Peru and Bolivia, Colombian coca fields are large and frequently are
collocated with cocaine base laboratories, suggesting that they are being
maintained by hired plantation labor – not individual peasant farmers.
Moreover, at least some of the new fields are being sowed with higher
yielding strains of coca typically found in Peru and Bolivia.
• CIA estimates that the increase in cultivation in Colombia over the
past two years resulted in an increased cocaine potential from 80 metric
tons to 125 metric tons, nearly enough to offset the 135-metric-ton drop in
cocaine potential in Peru.
• Virtually all new coca plantings have come in areas where government
spray aircraft cannot easily operate because of sustained resistance from
leftist guerrillas and the long distances involved from secure staging
bases. REDACTED WORDS
Holding Against the Tide in Bolivia. Bolivia’s coca industry has
changed less than those in Colombia and Peru. Near-record eradication of
mature cultivation in the Chapare growing region somewhat outpaced the
robust planting of new fields in Bolivia in 1997. That, combined with
uncompelled reductions in Bolivia’s two legal growing areas, the Yungas and
the Apolo regions, helped Bolivia reduce net cultivation last year by 5
percent.
• The modest reduction continues the trend of only minor fluctuations in
cultivation, unlike the wilder swings observed in Peru and Colombia in
recent years; net cultivation in Bolivia has fluctuated no more than 7,400
hectares – about 16 percent of that currently grown—at any time since 1988.
REDACTED WORDS
Such apparent progress against the Bolivian coca supply may be
misleading, however. While eradication contributed to a 4-percent decline in
cultivation in the Chapare region, there was a nearly equal 3-percent
reduction in the Yungas – the largest legal growing area, where no
eradication was attempted at all – and a substantial uncompelled reduction
in the less significant Apolo growing region. Farmers abandoned fields in
these traditional growing regions probably because bushes had exceeded their
productive life span. Prices for raw coca during this period were high,
suggesting that market factors were not responsible. Moreover, at least some
of the fields destroyed in the Chapare were planted in coca that was nearing
its maximum 10-to 15-year productive life span and might have been abandoned
soon anyway.3
• While much of the eradication in the Chapare was compulsory, the
government continued to pay farmers $2,500 in compensation for each hectare
destroyed. Newly planted fields are not productive for about two years, so
the payments almost certainly helped some farmers sustain their families
until future crops can be harvested.
REDACTED WORDS
The Changing Face of the Drug Trade
REDACTED WORD
The arrests or deaths of the Colombian kingpins from Cali and Medellin
have benefitted formerly subordinate groups and helped Mexican traffickers
consolidate a greater share of the international business. They also have
spurred more finished cocaine deals between Bolivian traffickers and a host
of criminal groups from Europe and Africa.
REDACTED WORDS
Diversity Among Andean Trafficking Organizations. The disruption
of the Colombian Cali mafia in 1995 and 1996 and the earlier dismantlement
of the Medellin cartel have created greater opportunity for other
trafficking organizations to develop their businesses. A number of groups
from northern Valle de Cauca Department and along the northern Caribbean
coast have expanded their portfolios and a new "cartel" has been formed with
the help of violent paramilitary groups operating in the so-called "plains"
region of Colombia east of the Andes
REDACTED WORDS
REDACTED HALF-PARAGRAPH severa1 Cali-based traffickers, perhaps
including some who are in jail, continue to make international drug
deals but at levels below those before the arrests.
Traffickers from the northern Valle de Cauca, meanwhile, who once
operated in the shadows of the Cali mafia, have risen in prominence.
• Arcangel and Luis Fernando Henao Montoya continue to
produce large amounts of cocaine for shipment to the United States and
Europe REDACTED WORDS The
arrest last fall of brother Jose appears not to nave seriously impeded
Arcangel"s and Luis’s drug activities.
• Diego Leon Montoya Sanchez, a cousin of the Henao Montoya
brothers, dominates much of the Colombian purchases of cocaine base from
Peru and has ties to Mexican traffickers, according to a foreign government
service.
• Raul Grajales Lemos and Luis Alfredo Grajales Posso ship
cocaine to the United States through Venezuela, Ecuador, Brazil, and Central
America REDACTED WORDS The
Grajales family reportedly owns some 150 commercial companies, including
department stores and wineries that bear the family name.
REDACTED WORDS
The rise to power of traffickers from Colombia’s northern coast and the
withdrawal of the US military cordon around Haiti has led to a resurgence in
Colombian-sponsored trafficking along Caribbean routes
REDACTED WORDS
REDACTED WORDS North coast
groups reportedly use commercial vessels as well as multi-engined speedboats
that are often difficult to detect and even harder to catch while moving
cocaine – often staging from hideaways in northern Venezuela.
• The most significant of the Colombian north coast groups is headed by
Alberto Orlandez Gamboa, who is also known by the alias "Caracol."
REDACTED WORDS Caracol
coordinates trans-Carribean shipments on behalf of major Colombian cocaine
producers to drug groups in Hispaniola and the Lesser Antilles.
• The Coneo Rios family relies on its extensive drug networks in
Hispaniola and Puerto Rico to ship drugs to the United States.
REDACTED WORDS Fernando
Alfonso Burgos-Martinez, a key ally of the Coneo Rios family,
coordinates Colombian cocaine movements through Haiti.
REDACTED WORDS
REDACTED PARAGRAPH
Outside Colombia, Bolivian traffickers have reacted to the Colombians
growing self-sufficiency for coca derivatives to step up their own
independent manufacture and international marketing of cocaine.
REDACTED WORDS in recent
years finished cocaine has constituted from one-third to one-half of ll coca
derivatives seized in Bolivia, up from less than 10 percent in each of the
years prior to 1995.5 Much of the increased cocaine appears to be
bound for Europe, Africa, and the Southern Cone countries:
REDACTED WORDS Italian
criminals from the Benedetto Santapaulo organization in recent months
have expanded illegal operations in Bolivia that almost certainly
include cocaine trafficking. Other criminals from Brazil, Nigeria,
Russia, and other countries reportedly also are involved in cocaine
exports from Bolivia. REDACTED
WORDS
The Rising Power of Mexican Cartels. Mexican trafficking groups,
once the subservient contractors of major Colombian cocaine traffickers,
have risen to become equal, or nearly equal, partners in crime. Mexican
groups have parlayed their natural access to the expansive southern border
of the United States to dominate some 57 percent of all US-bound cocaine
shipments. REDACTED WORDS
Whereas in years past, when Mexican groups were paid a cash fee for
smuggling Colombian-owned drugs, major Mexican cartels often receive a
portion of each shipment they receive as payment or they buy the shipment.
• To liquidate cocaine acquired from the Colombians, Mexican cartels have
developed their own distribution networks in several US cities,
REDACTED WORDS according US
press reports. REDACTED WORDS
REDACTED PARAGRAPH
The Juarez cartel, based in the border city Ciudad Juarez,
opposite El Paso, Texas, continues to be the most powerful Mexican
trafficking group, despite the unexpected death last summer of founder and
kingpin Amado Carrillo Fuentes. The cartel exploits an impressive array of
corrupt police, military, and political officials to maintain the safety of
its drug operations, even though military counterdrug forces have
significantly increased their pressure on the group.
REDACTED WORDS Despite
considerable score-settling violence in Juarez, the cartel is continuing to
operate efficiently in the wake of Carrillo Fuentes’s death. It says that
other cartel leaders, such as Eduardo Gonzales Qunarte and Juan Esparragoza,
are not challenging the right of Carillo Fuentes’s brother Vicente to
inherit leadership of the organization.
• Mexico’s top antidrug cop, however, has claimed publicly that
succession of the Juarez cartel is not clear and that encroachments from
rival groups may be responsible for continuing Juarez-area violence.
REDACTED WORDS
REDACTED PARAGRAPH
The Tijuana cartel, headed by brothers Ramon and Benjamin
Arrellano Felix, has earned a reputation as the most violent of Mexican
trafficking gangs. The group exploits its ties to US youth gangs to dominate
smuggling across the border of southern California from San Diego to Yuma
from its Tijuana stronghold, according to press reports, and reportedly uses
violence and intimidation to challenge rival grout for control of drug
operations in Mexicali.
• The Tijuana cartel is the group best positioned to exploit any loss in
influCnce by the Juarez cartel caused by Amado Carillo Fuentes’ death.
REDACTED WORDS
The Gulf cartel continues to be in disarray since the arrest and
extradition to the United States of leader Juan Garcia Abrego in January
1996 and the capture of the long-presumed successor Oscar Malherbe in
February 1997. REDACTED WORDS
Garcia Abrego brother Humberto has been working to gain control over me
cartel since his release from prison under questionable circumstances last
February.
• At least some of the Gulf cartel’s former "turf had been assumed by the
Juarez cartel, according to press reports.
REDACTED WORDS
Jesus and Luis Amezcua, while only minor players in international
cocaine smuggling, dominate much of the hemisphere s supply of
metharnphetamines and the precursors needed to manufacture them. The group
operates in several Mexican states, including Baja California, Jalisco, and
Colima.
• The arrest of brother Adan Amezcua in late 1996 and the earlier jailing
of Amezcua associate Jaime Ladino appear to have set back but not seriously
damaged the group’s operations.
REDACTED WORDS
Evolving Trafficking Patterns
REDACTED WORDS
Blockage of the Andean "airbridge" and the arrests of the Cali kingpins
are driving forces behind several changes in drug transportation routes and
methods. The changes are most evident in Ecuador, Brazil, and the Southern
Cone countries, where trafficking is becoming more ensconced.
REDACTED WORDS
Detours to the Airbridge. The blockage of the air link between
Peru and Colombia has led many Peruvian traffickers to shift their routes
westward, where the drugs can be exported via ship or driven to Colombia
along the Inter-American highway. Increased traffic along the highway has
led to a corresponding growth in the importance of Ecuador, a burgeoning
crossroads for the Andean cocaine trade.
REDACTED SENTENCE
traffickers are using Ecuador to stage major cocaine exports to the
United States and elsewhere; at one time earlier this year, for example,
some 20 tons of cocaine were reported to have been in simultaneous
stages of actual or planned movement.
REDACTED WORDS
Other Peruvian traffickers are moving drugs by river and trail to pick up
points near Peru’s frontiers with Brazil and Colombia
REDACTED WORDS There
Colombian pilots can pick up the cocaine while facing little or no risk of
being shot down by Peruvian interceptors. At least a few traffickers in the
south of Peru are shipping some of their coca derivatives over land into
Bolivia for final processing
REDACTED WORDS a move further indicated by the growing symmetry or
Peruvian and Bolivian coca prices that suggests a limited merging of the two
markets. Although Peru has yet to complement its aggressive air interdiction
efforts with an effective means of interdicting drugs on the rivers and
land, most Peruvian traffickers seem unwilling to rely heavily on surface
transport methods in the jungle regions.
• The threat of effective interdiction, banditry, excessive delays, and
the potential for spoilage make such routes less attractive than air
transfers or movements along the coastal highways.
REDACTED WORDS
Impact of Increased Bolivian Cocaine Processing. The increase in
direct cocaine exports from Bolivia is also prompting important changes in
drug routes. REDACTED WORDS
many Bolivian traffickers shipping cocaine via rail to Brazil, from where it
most likely is being exported directly to Europe or Africa
REDACTED WORDS Bolivian
cocaine is reaching international smuggling staging areas in Paraguay,
Argentina, and Chile. At least some of this cocaine, however, may be
reaching the US.
• REDACTED WORDS less
cocaine is traveling along traditional air routes to Colombia, and US drug
enforcement agents say that Colombian traffickers are playing a smaller role
in the Bolivian drug trade than in the past.
REDACTED WORDS
Mexican Search for Independent Cocaine Source. Apparently
frustrated by the high cost of Colombian cocaine, several Mexican
trafficking organizations have been exploring the possibility of acquiring a
cheaper supply in Peru and Bolivia. Mexican traffickers have had only
limited success so far, however, probably because Colombian traffickers
sabotaged several early efforts by tipping off local police and because the
Mexicans continue to lack access to an independent international
transportation networks. Key examples of Mexican interest in the
non-Colombian source zone include:
• In January 1995, Peruvian police dismantled the "Los Nortenos Cartel"
in Piura, Peru – a group the US Embassy in Lima says had been shipping
multi-ton loads of cocaine to the Mexican Sonora and possibly Juarez cartels.
• In September 1995, Peruvian police seized 4.1 tons of finished cocaine
on board a Bolivian DC-6 bound for Mexico, which had stopped in Lima to
fuel. US anti-drug officials say the cocaine belonged to now deceased Juarez
kingpin Amado Carrillo Fuentes.
• An uncorroborated Mexican press report says that Carrillo – who spent
most of his remaining months in Chile, according to Chilean press reports
REDACTED WORDS was there to
build a large-scale laboratory to process Bolivian and Peruvian cocaine
base.
• Late last year, Peruvian police disbanded a fledgling drug "cartel"
operating out of the coastal cities Callao, Pisco, and Nazca. A senior
police official told reporters for a local newspaper that the cartel was
being formed with the help of Mexicans, who wanted to find a cheaper source
for cocaine. REDACTED WORDS
While these efforts largely failed, others may soon succeed. Travelers to
drug-impacted areas of Peru and Bolivia report an increased presence of
Mexican "businessmen" there, and foreign government service reports suggest
that negotiations between Mexican traffickers and Bolivian counterparts are
continuing. The incentive for the Mexicans to make a direct connection is
strong; cocaine that Mexican traffickers buy from Colombian counterparts for
thousands of dollars can be purchased for only hundreds directly at the
source. REDACTED WORDS
Growing Importance of the Latin American Heroin Trade
REDACTED WORDS
Trafficking groups in Colombia and Mexico in recent years have moved to
exploit the resurgence in US consumer interest in heroin. While Latin
American-origin opiates constitute only a small fraction of those produced
worldwide, they are an important source for US consumers because of their
quality and availability.
Heroin Production. Potential Latin American heroin output more
than doubled between 1993 and 1995 and has stabilized since
REDACTED WORDS The amounts
produced during those years however, 5 and 11 metric tons respectively, rose
from 1.5 to 3 percent of that potentially produced worldwide. Estimated
heroin production was virtually unchanged in 1996 and declined slightly last
year, from 11 to 10 metric tons – the 1997 figure represented about 2.8
percent of global production.
• Colombia, which surpassed Mexico as the region s largest heroin
producer in 1995, potentially produced 6 metric tons of heroin last year
from the 6,600 hectares of opium poppy under cultivation.
• Mexican poppy plants potentially yielded 4 metric tons of heroin
from the 4,000 hectares of poppy grown in 1997.
Targeting the US Market. While only a small portion of the world
s heroin supply comes from Latin America, hemispheric production accounts
for a disproportionate share of that available to US consumers
REDACTED WORDS
• Colombian-origin heroin reportedly dominates opiate sales in the
northeastern US, probably because its high purity – enough to allow abusers
to snort the drug rather than inject it intravenously – is preferred by many
consumers.
• Lower purity Mexican "black tar" heroin reportedly dominates several
key urban markets in the southwestern United States.
REDACTED WORDS
Latin American Heroin Organizations. Mexico s polydrug cartels
are playing a key role in US-bound heroin shipments.
REDACTED WORDS The groups
encourage poppy cultivation, process opium gum into heroin, and supervise
cross-border shipments of refined drugs. Less is known about Colombian
heroin suppliers, however; while major trafficking organizations – including
the group led by Vicente Rivera – are involved in international movements of
Colombian opiates REDACTED WORDS
several less-well-known trafficking groups exist that specialize in heroin production and sale.
• Some of the Colombian groups may have ties to counterparts from East
Asia, who, because of the similarity in production techniques, appear to
have provided the technical know-how the Colombians need to refine
high-quality heroin. REDACTED WORDS
Outlook REDACTED WORDS
Changes in the drug industry reflect the unprecedented impact US-backed
anti-drug efforts are having in the region. Whereas in the past several
members of major drug trafficking organizations operated with near impunity
– often flaunting their excessive wealth and power publicly – most now avoid
the public exposure that made their competitors a target for anti-drug
efforts. REDACTED WORDS
Despite such progress, cocaine trading organizations still reap billions
in collective profits, and little intelligence reporting exists to suggest
that traffickers in the nearby transit zones are experiencing drug
shortages.
• The industry, moreover, has proven highly adaptive to change – perhaps
much more so than the allied governments, which often are slow to capitalize
on their own successes because of resource constraints and bureaucratic
inflexibility. REDACTED WORDS
Implications for the United States
REDACTED WORDS
The changing face of the cocaine trade will challenge current antidrug
programs:
• A more clandestine and diffuse drug industry will require US-backed
antidrug forces to focus more of their limited time and resources on
acquiring intelligence on emerging antidrug leaders and organizations.
• Cultivation shifts between Peru and Colombia are likely to reduce the
long-term impact of current air interdiction efforts along the Andean
cocaine airbridge and increase the need for Colombia to target internal
movements from coca producing areas in southern portions of the country to
major cities. The shifts also will add substantially to the war chests of
Colombia’s leftist insurgents, who protect farms and drug labs for profit.
• Expanded drug routes through Brazil, Venezuela, and the Southern Cones
countries – nations with limited anti-drug abilities – will further
complicate efforts to monitor and control international drug movements.
• Greater domination of trafficking routes in the Caribbean by Colombian
traffickers will likely exacerbate corruption among US-supported anti-drug
police units there. REDACTED WORDS
The changes at the same time will produce some new opportunities to
advance counternarcotics goals.
• The lack of clear drug leaders in some countries will lead to greater
rivalry among aspiring traffickers that police can exploit to disrupt and
distract them.
• Mexican attempts to secure an independent cocaine supply may lead to
more police intelligence tips from jealous Colombian rivals; such tips in
the past appear to have been responsible for major drug seizures.
• The reduced power of groups such as the Cali mafia – which in the past
successfully influenced Colombia’s politics – may make governments in the
region more willing to tackle tough anti-drug initiatives.
REDACTED WORDS
Appendix
Key Intelligence Gaps
REDACTED WORD
There are many areas in which intelligence collection against the
narcotics target is insufficient, but the following are particularly
damaging to our understanding of the changes:
The Status of the Cali Mafia. The long-term impact of the arrest of
mafia leaders on Cali-based drug movements is uncertain.
REDACTED WORDS jailed Cali
traffickers tried last year to set up a communications mechanism that Would
allow them to maintain control over their organizations, but their efforts
reportedly were not successful. Nonetheless, each leader receives almost
daily visits from lawyers and kin that would allow for the theoretical
passage of essential messages to lieutenants outside prison. Reporting
appears to indicate that the volume of Cali’s cocaine business is
diminished, but how much so remains unanswered; the arrests forced the group
to improve its internal security, thereby decreasing the probability that
its drug transactions would become known to US intelligence.
REDACTED WORDS
The Productivity of Colombian Coca. While DEA-sponsored operation
"Breakthrough" has provided reliable coca yield data for Peru and the
Chapare in Bolivia, the dangers in traveling throughout insurgent-dominated
areas of southern Colombia so far have prevented the US Government from
conducting adequate science-based coca yield research there. Yield data used
and agreed upon by the US Government
REDACTED WORDS could be underestimating the
potential leaf yield, especially given that coca seedbeds which are
associated with higher-yielding varieties of coca
REDACTED WORDS They may also
underestimate the leaf-to-cocaine conversion ratio. Higher yields would
increase the estimate of the amount of cocaine potentially available to
consumers worldwide. Plans are being made for a more intensive study of the
productivity of Colombian coca.
REDACTED WORDS
The Command and Control Status of the Juarez Cartel. The leadership
succession of the cartel is not well understood, in part because the group
had tightened its internal security just months after the arrest early last
year of former drug czar Jesus Gutierrez Rebollo, a Juarez-cartel
collaborator. REDACTED WORDS
the succession to Carrillo has been decided, but a senior official of the
Attorney General’s office has publicly claimed there is a power struggle
ongoing within the group that may be spurring encroachments from the rival
Tijuana group. The large amount of drug-related homicides in and near Ciudad
Juarez also suggests there could be some competition for supremacy among
former Carrillo lieutenants.
REDACTED WORDS
The Destination of Bolivian Cocaine. The export routes for Bolivian
cocaine are not well known. While various information suggests much of the
drug is being exported to Europe, at least some amount almost certainly is
reaching the United States. Even less well known is the percentage of coca
derivatives that are still being shipped to Colombia – formerly the major
buyer of Bolivian cocaine base – and the means by which Bolivian drugs reach
there. REDACTED WORDS a
decline in the use of traditional air routes between countries when compared
with years past. REDACTED WORDS
The Possibility of Bolivian Drug Kingpins. Increased production of
finished cocaine and the growing number of transactions involving foreign
criminal enterprises suggest an increase in both the size and power of
Bolivian trafficking groups. Nonetheless, current collection efforts, albeit
limited, have not revealed the reemergence of kingpin organizations, such as
those that operated in Bolivia until the late l980s, when several major
traffickers accepted a government surrender offer. |