The Changing Drug War and Gobernación

Two days ago, Enrique Peña Nieto , Mexican president-elect, presented his vision for a cabinet change in his upcoming administration, beginning December 1. Since this will directly impact the way that Mexico manages its anti-narcotics efforts, I'm sharing it here for your consideration.

President Peña Nieto will fold the Public Security Ministry (Secretaría de Seguridad Pública, SSP) into and under the Secretary of the Interior (Secretaría de Gobernación, SEGOB). This means that in addition to Centro de Investigación y Seguridad Nacional, CISEN, the Mexican CIA, and the Paramilitary Police that will be organized under President Peña Nieto's administration, the Secretariat will be in charge of:

The Federal Police 

The Secretariat of the National System of Public Security

The Federal Prison System

The Subsecretariat of Human Rights

The Directorate of Social Communications

The Directorate General of International Affairs

The Directorate for Coordination of State and Municipal Police

The Directorate of Private Security

The General Directorate of Prisoner Transport Security

The Directorate General of Police Career and Regulations

(This is by no means a comprehensive list. I cut it short - simply for the sake of brevity.)

There have been a chain of Secretaries of the Interior under President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa
(2006–2008) : Francisco Javier Ramírez Acuña
(2008–2008) : Juan Camilo Mouriño Terrazo
(2008–2010) : Fernando Gómez–Mont Urueta
(2010–2011) : Francisco Blake Mora
(2011–2011) : Alejandro Poiré Romero

I'm not going to speculate on the revolving door at this point because, frankly, it's pointless. It's history and Mexico is moving forward.

The new focus on law enforcement and for the Department of the Interior will be kidnapping, extortion and murder. Narcotics enforcement will be "rethought".

The Federation Strikes Back

There are five key accusations against ATF and DOJ made by ATF whistleblowers and other sources within FedGov:

1. That they instructed U.S. gun dealers to proceed with questionable and illegal sales of firearms to suspected gunrunners.

2. That they allowed or even assisted in those guns crossing the U.S. border into Mexico to "boost the numbers" of American civilian market firearms seized in Mexico and thereby provide the justification for more firearm restrictions on American citizens and more power and money for ATF.

3. That they intentionally kept Mexican authorities in the dark about the operation, even over objections of their own agents.

4. That weapons that the ATF let "walk" to Mexico were involved in the deaths of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry and ICE agent Jaime Zapata, as well as at least hundreds of Mexican citizens.

5. That at least since the death of Brian Terry on 14 December, the Obama administration is engaged in a full-press cover-up of the facts behind what has come to be known as the "Gunwalker Scandal."

(The Sipsey Street Irregulars)

__________________________________________

There has been a national election in the USA in which nobody discussed this rather sorry chapter in American History. The candidates were mute as was the mainstream media. Maybe they felt that it had all become "history", and thus a mere footnote to the great unwashed who would soon vote for the next president and "leader of the free world".

However as unlikely as it may seem, there are people in Mexico who have dead friends and relatives, killed with firearms and ammunition supplied to cartels by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms who have longer memories than the American Press.

The brother of a high ranking US federal agent was kidnapped in Casa Grande, Chihuahua and subsequently killed in Mexico, last week. The murderers dumped his body near Agua Prieta. It didn't have anything to do with Operation Gunrunner directly, however it was a message sent to US Law Enforcement and you're going to hear that message again from the Sinaloa Federation. 

This is the bottom line. When the Federation (drug cartel) gives up one of its own as a sacrificial sheep to satisfy the needs MEXGOV to look good in the press or when they need to weed out a weakling, that's ok. When the US uses "atmospherics" to track somebody that they need/want around and feed that to SEMAR, then the fir will fly.

You'll hear more of this in the future both on this blog and elsewhere. The Sinaloa Federation wants USGOV to take their law enforcement officials out of the Republic of Mexico. There was a political statement made on July 1, 2012 and that government will be seated on December 1, 2012. Look for one of the reasons behind MEXGOV restricting US Law Enforcement in Mexico to be the Gunwalker Scandal.

Nicholas Ivie murder and the Beltran Leyva Cartel

The Beltrán-Leyva Cartel (Beltrán Leyva Organization or BLO -  Cártel de los Beltrán Leyva was a Mexican drug cartel founded by Arturo, Carlos, Alfredo and Hector Beltrán Leyva brothers. The cartel found its origin with the demise of Amado Carillo Fuentes (El Rey de Ciello). From time to time they have been allied to and opposed to most of the other drug syndicates in Mexico. 

On August 11, 2011, the Mexican Government declared the cartel to be disbanded and extinct, except that it's not. (Wikipedia) As of the penning of this blog, the BLO has been pushed back in Sinaloa to a sparse turf in Mexico including the Gussave and Batamote corridor in the valley along the highway 15 corridor and into the mountains east of there in the region referred to as "Mexico's Golden Triangle" where the states of Sinaloa, Durango and Chihuahua meet.

They also control turf in Nayarit State and in the area surrounding Cuernavaca. Their distribution network in the United States is intact. They control various sections along the US/Mexico Border including a portion of the narcotics traffic that crosses at the San Luis Colorado/Yuma area and about 75% of the turf between Nogales and Agua Prieto. It's in that turf area that Agent Nicholas Ivie was murdered this week. And there it was there, in that area that Fausto Isidro Meza Flores also known as Chapo Isidro traveled to pick up a supply of money that was transported south, across the US/Mexico Border.

One of the best photos of Chapo Isidro available. He has
more gray hair now and is heavier.

Chapo Isidro has been pressed hard of late. There were two attacks by the Mexican Army at his home in Batamote and at Camp Wilson over the past three months wherein they tried to take him and only succeeded in killing his bodyguards. Today the Mexican Federal Police raided his home near Gussave and took members of his family into custody.

He traveled up to the border across from the Bisbee, Arizona Corridor because he needed to replenish his war chest. There's been a big war in Mexico and he needed more cash to pay his small army of about 300 fighters.

Drug dealers transit the Bisbee, Arizona Corridor because the US Border Patrol is prohibited by policy for policing that area with vehicles. They do their work on horseback or on foot. Terrorists or narcotraffickers have a pass to move through this area. A bill passed the House of Representatives on June 19, stipulates that federal land management agencies may not prohibit enforcement efforts to “prevent all unlawful entries into the United States, including entries by terrorists, other unlawful aliens, instruments of terrorism, narcotics, and other contraband through the international land borders of the United States.” The Senate has not acted and the bill rests, collecting dust on Sen. Harry Reid's desk.

On October 2, 2012 in the early morning hours, Ivie, along with two other agents, responded to a border sensor about five miles into Arizona. Ivie was shot to death and one of the other agents was wounded.

Border Patrol Agent Nicholas Ivie was responding to members of a drug cartel that officially doesn't exist anymore in a portion of the US/Mexico Border area that the US Government wouldn't allow them to use automobiles to patrol, when he was killed by friendly fire.

Out of the more than 20 million acres of Interior Department and U.S. Forest Service land along the southern border, 4.3 million acres are classified as wilderness areas.

The Center for Biological Diversity has been one of the organizations charging that greater access for the Border Patrol on federal lands would harm the environment.

“Organ Pipe and Cabeza Prieta lie adjacent to each other along the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona and have been significantly hurt by off-road vehicle use in recent years — much of the damage has been the result of Border Patrol vehicles riding roughshod over wilderness areas,” (PJ Media)