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REPORTS:
DRUGS-LATIN
AMERICA:
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No
More Kingpins
Diego
Cevallos*
MEXICO CITY, (IPS) - Gone is the
era of the Latin American drug
kingpins who enjoyed fame, flaunted
their luxurious lifestyles and even
offered to pay off national debts.
Today, most drug cartel leaders are
more discreet, even austere in their
lifestyles, and operate their illegal
trade more democratically, say
experts.
Reports gathered by IPS in Bolivia,
Colombia and Mexico indicate that the
”narco-trafficking” bosses are now
managers of smaller operations, though
with multinational ties, and focus on
specific tasks of drug cultivation,
production and transport, as well as
money laundering.
Unlike their predecessors, the people
at the helm of these illegal groups in
the three countries -- among Latin
America's in the production and
transport of narcotics to the United
States and Europe -- are not well
known and tend to shun the media
spotlight.
But one thing that has not changed
much is the violence utilised to
protect their business from
competitors and from government
authorities.
Despite arrests, seizures of drug
shipments and destruction of drug
crops, the flow of these illegal
substances -- including cocaine,
heroin and marijuana -- to
international markets, and to the
United States in particular, has shown
no signs of waning.
Worldwide, the illegal drugs trade
moves some 500 billion dollars
annually, according to United Nations
figures.
But the trade's methods have changed.
In Bolivia today, for example, there
are no drug-trafficking kingpins being
sought by U.S. justice authorities.
Drug producers in Bolivia who grow
coca to manufacture cocaine are lost
among the peasants who grow the bush
for ”pijcheo”, as the traditional
custom of chewing coca leaves is known
in the Quechua language.
Relegated to Bolivian history is
Roberto Suárez Gómez, who in the
1980s offered to pay off his country's
external debt -- at the time worth 5.0
billion dollars. The renowned drug
cartel boss, who relished every
opportunity to defy the government,
was arrested in 1984 and died of an
illness in prison in 2000.
Observers of the illegal drugs trade
agree that none of the current
”jefes” in Latin America approach
the fame achieved by Colombia's Pablo
Escobar, killed in 1993 as he fled the
police, or by Mexico's Amado Carrillo,
known as ”Lord of the Heavens”,
who died in 1997 from complications
after plastic surgery to alter his
appearance.
”Today's drug trafficking operates
through smaller organisations that are
specialised and federalised. The new
leaders maintain a low profile or are
simply unknown, disposable and
replaceable,” Jorge Chabat, an
expert on the matter and professor at
Mexico's Centre for Economic Research
and Teaching (CIDE), told IPS.
In Colombia, the authorities have
dubbed the new leaders ”the seven
horsemen of narco-trafficking”. They
are Diego León Montoya, alias ”Don
Diego”, brothers Víctor and Miguel
Mejía Múnera, Ever Villafañe Martínez,
Juan David Vélez Cárdenas, Paulo
Andrés Hoyos and Carlos Alberto
Flores Henao.
The seven men have under their control
some 140 small organisations in
Colombia directly involved in drug
trafficking activities and another 20
that are dedicated to the illicit
trade in the chemicals used in the
production of cocaine and heroin.
But there are still some leaders whose
names are better known to the public.
One is William Rodríguez, a Colombian
lawyer who studied at Harvard
University in the United States, whose
claim to fame is that he is the son of
Miguel Rodríguez Orejuela, former
chief of what was known as the Cali
Cartel.
There are some 160 groups nationally
and 40 internationally that are
currently active in the Colombian drug
trafficking business, involving an
estimated 4,060 people, according to
Defence Minister Marta Lucía Ramírez.
Unlike this country's drug cartels in
the past, the common denominator of
the new groups is that they operate
inconspicuously, they are more
discreet, says Alonso Salazar, author
of the book ”Drugs and Narco-Trafficking
in Colombian Society”.
”They are not ostentatious with
their power and wealth like Escobar
and his people were, which makes them
more difficult to spot,” he told IPS.
Salazar noted that the culture within
the new organisations is more
democratic and each maintains a level
of independence while specialising in
certain areas of the trade.
Colombia's anti-drugs authorities
calculate that some 30 groups are
dedicated to controlling coca
production, another 62 are involved in
manufacturing the basic paste used to
make cocaine, transporting it from the
production centres and the first phase
of domestic sales, and some 50 more
manage the land, sea and air routes
for distributing the final products.
In Mexico, meanwhile, a large portion
of the drugs trade is overseen by a
sort of federation, made up of several
trafficking organisations, according
to a joint study by the Mexican
Federal Agency of Investigations and
the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA).
This federation, which has contacts
with South American drug producers,
was created as a means to share the
risks and reduce the losses implicit
in conducting illegal business,
according to the study.
Mexico's authorities acknowledge that
the anti-drugs fight is more
complicated today because the trade is
no longer conducted by large, unified
cartels. Now the groups are smaller
and the leadership more diffuse, say
officials.
Mexican expert Jorge Fernández says
that most of the drugs mafias ”are
fully immersed in the globalised logic
of organised crime.”
The era when the drugs trade could be
divided neatly into regions and
countries in terms of cultivation,
production, transport and money
laundering ”is a thing of the
past.”
Nearly all Latin American countries
are now involved in the business to
some degree, says Fernández, author
of several books on the issue.
The people involved in the business
number in the thousands. In Mexico
alone, 19,000 arrests related to drug
trafficking were made from December
2000 to April 2003. Fewer than 20 of
the arrestees could be considered
leaders.
Although these numbers might seem to
represent major blows to the mafias,
the drugs business continues to be
brisk, supported to a great extent by
demand in the United States, the
world's leading drug consumer.
Government crackdowns on traffickers
have only temporary effect. The
organisations make internal
adjustments and reappear with new
leaders.
In Colombia, which has received 1.3
billion dollars from the United States
over the past two years for its
anti-drugs fight, the government
reported in 2002 that coca plantations
had been reduced 15 percent and poppy
(the raw material for heroin) by 25
percent. But the illicit business
continues.
Meanwhile in Bolivia, figures from
August 2002 indicate that coca
plantations had been cut drastically
to just 21,000 hectares, but there is
consensus among experts that the total
area planted with the bush has begun
to expand once again.
The fight against drug trafficking
continues in Latin America with
Washington's financial assistance and
guidance, while evidence suggests that
the narco-mafias are not letting up in
their efforts to reorganise under more
subtle and diffuse leadership.
(* With reporting by Juan Carlos Rocha/Bolivia
and Yadira Ferrer/Colombia..)
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